


Ground Zero Community Allotments

by Kateyfish (014469)



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Bucky Barnes Feels, Canon Divergence - Post-Avengers (2012), Captain America Steve Rogers/Modern Bucky Barnes, Falling In Love, Fluff and Angst, Gardens & Gardening, Happy Ending, M/M, Minor Original Character(s), Modern Bucky Barnes, No Smut, Post-Avengers (2012), Post-Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), Protective Bucky Barnes, Shrunkyclunks, Shy Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers Has PTSD, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, War Veteran Bucky Barnes, men standing in holes, steve rogers eats his vegetables
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-11
Updated: 2017-05-22
Packaged: 2018-10-17 14:36:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 22,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10596036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/014469/pseuds/Kateyfish
Summary: After the Battle of New York, Captain America becomes a world-wide celebrity. Steve Rogers, on the other hand, would much rather be left alone. He's fine, but... the constant PR obligations and life in Avengers Tower are getting him down. When Pepper Potts hounds him into attending the official opening ceremony of a new community garden and allotments built among the ruins of the Chitauri attack, Steve is expecting just one more round of hand-shaking and baby-kissing. What he is not expecting is for the community gardens to be run by a beautiful ex-soldier with a busted-up arm and a strange ability to see past all the Captain America bullshit.Bucky Barnes, the proud creator of the Ground Zero Community Gardens, is not expecting his allotments to become over-run by Avengers needing some time out from the responsibilities of everyday life, nor is he expecting for Captain America to have a green thumb. But behind the bland, all-American facade of Cap, Bucky manages to catch a few glimpses of the man who used to be Steve Rogers.A story about identity, recovery and vegetables.





	1. Germination

**Author's Note:**

> I really just wanted to write crack about Bucky and Steve trying to woo each other with vegetables, and then plot happened.

**Germination** \-----------------------------------------------------------  
**April 2012** \------------------------------------------------------------

Bucky Barnes returned from his second tour of Iraq with a head full of monsters and a busted up left arm. He moved into a shitty apartment in New York, avoided calls from his mother and sister, let the laundry pile up in the corners of his room, and began to rot away. The winter of his life fogged up his mind and iced his veins, and so he slept deep in the soil of his life, waiting to see the sun. 

Everything changed when aliens attacked New York. Bucky watched open-mouthed as real-life superheroes – Captain America, for fuck’s sake – battled space-whales with rippling armoured sides and strange organic beings wielding glowing blue weapons. He could see the terror, even from the other side of his TV screen, and he knew, with the same icy certainty which had propelled him to lead soldiers into fire fights and border skirmishes, that he could help. Bucky hunted for his phone, opened facebook, and typed out a quick status update. He sent the same message in a text to all his friends who he knew were in New York that day, phoned his mother and sister, and started gathering up all the blankets from the corners of his apartment. 

The message worked. Within an hour, people with no-where else to go started pouring into his apartment. Any friend of his, any high-school acquaintance or old flame or war buddy or distant family member who was caught out in New York without a safe place to hide was welcome to come hide out at his place, far away from the fighting. He had food and blankets and one helluva First Aid kit, and a lot of space that he wasn’t using. Bucky fed fourteen scared, hurting people on the day of the Battle of New York, fed them on cans of beans and soup and gallons of strong coffee, nurtured them with camaraderie and watched as the shadows on the faces of his friends slowly dissipated in the warmth of his apartment. 

Bucky squished onto the sofa between one of his sisters’ old boyfriends and his mothers’ oldest family friend, and watched the shaky news footage as Tony Stark flew a missile into that impossible portal in the sky and the fight was over, watched as the Hulk caught Tony when he fell out of the clouds and watched as the newly-defrosted Captain America, blood seeping from a wound in his side and his blond hair dishevelled and dirty, made a short, exhausted speech about freedom and sacrifice before limping off to get schwarma, of all things. 

 

Large areas of the city were destroyed, entire buildings levelled and whole blocks obliterated into rubble. The clean-up operation was forecasted to take years and cost millions, and was helped along greatly when Stark Industries created the Stark Germination Fund, a pot of money available to community groups wanting to make something good out of the rebuild process. Kids’ playgrounds, soup kitchens and food banks sprung up for those who’d lost everything, and slowly, painfully, life returned to something like normal. 

Six months after Bucky had opened his apartment to a multitude of scared humanity on the day of the Battle of New York, his application for a Stark Germination Fund community grant was approved and he leased a patch of land close to ground-zero where the worst of the attacks happened, with the intention of turning it into a community allotment. He wanted something beautiful to grow from the rubble of the alien attack, wanted something to quell the nightmares of that day which still crept up on him and mingled with the nightmares of sand and dust and explosions and gunfire which haunted him at night. 

It took Bucky and a team of community volunteers months to make the destroyed city blocks suitable for garden allotments. Bucky worked long hours clearing away rubble as best he could with one arm still weak and shaky, rented cheap construction equipment with his Stark funding and removed any evidence of battle and loss from the earth until the block was just plain old dirt, baking in the New York sunshine and luxuriating in the rain showers. From dirt like that, anything could grow. 

Two weeks after the rubble started to clear away and the clean, new dirt was revealed, Bucky was working on fencing off areas for hothouses and polytunnels, fighting with plastic sheets and bamboo canes, when a sleek black limo pulled up to the curb and out stepped a tall woman in a pale yellow dress. Her golden hair shimmered in the sunshine, making her look ethereal and beautiful. Her look was grounded, however, by the steely blue gaze she turned on Bucky and the clipped way she addressed him. 

‘Mr Barnes? Pepper Potts, CEO Stark Industries. Pleased to meet you.’

She held out a clean hand which Bucky took in his own, wiping the loose earth and brick dust away self-consciously on his holey jeans before he did so. The smile Pepper gave him was kind and only a little sharky as she pinned him down with her gaze. Bucky knew who she was of course. Pepper Potts was the woman who’d been credited with turning around Stark Industries after Tony Stark became Iron Man and shareholders panicked. She was a capable businesswoman and a dependable boss. Stark Germination Funds had been her idea, something to give back to the community which had suffered so much after the Chitauri invasion and, Bucky suspected, giving Stark some much-needed good PR at a time when so many were calling for Iron Man to be deactivated and turned over to the government. 

Pepper surveyed the block, blue eyes taking in the heaps of semi-organised rubble ushered into piles by volunteers, the ramshackle tea shed in the far corner and the shivering polytunnels. Bucky nervously tugged at his hair in its messy bun at the back of his head and swiped his tongue over dry lips. He wasn’t nervous, he told himself, to have his pet project evaluated by this incredibly sophisticated woman. He wasn’t ashamed of the dirt and the second-hand tools and the smell of fertiliser. He wasn’t ashamed of his own shabby appearance or of the fact that the trickle of volunteers was running thin. 

Bucky walked Pepper through the block, showing her his plans for the allotments, the place where schools would be able to grow flowers and allow kids to dig in the dirt, the plans to offer veterans somewhere quiet to sit and help grow plants that were beautiful or useful or edible or medicinal, whatever they wanted, because sometimes, he explained to Pepper, the important thing for people was to be able to see the progress they were making, see the difference they could make. Miss Potts didn’t say much throughout the tour, only asking a few questions about his plans and how the Stark funding was being used. After an hour or so, she declined Bucky’s invitation to take a cup of coffee in the leaky tea shed, climbed into her waiting limo, and departed.  
Hand on his hips, one foot tapping in the dirt, Bucky watched her go, hoping that would be the end of that. 

He turned out to be wrong – that visit was just the start. 

 

 **Shoots and Leaves** \-------------------------------  
**May 2013** \--------------------------------------

Steve Rogers looked out of his bedroom window in Stark Tower on a rainy Wednesday in May, jaw clenched and fire in his eyes. He’d been defrosted just over a year ago, only two weeks before the alien invasion, and he was still not used to the modern world. Since becoming an Avenger, he’d been installed in a floor of Stark Tower which was far too big and bland for just him, been given a phone and a computer, and told to familiarise himself with the modern life. Steve, who only a year ago had been a machine designed for war in a time when young men went away and didn’t come back, was rootless and drifting in this new age. He’d thrown himself back into serving for SHIELD, tried anything he could think of to keep himself from having free time so that he didn’t have to face the nightmarish shadows of the war and the ice and the water which followed him everywhere. This modern obsession with something called ‘Therapy’ was not for him, he’d decided, because he was fine. As long as he could still fight and think and run and lead, then he was fine. He was doing what he’d been designed for, and as long as he was the property of the US government, that was all he had to worry about. He was… fine. 

It was just that… the New York he’d loved had gone, everyone he loved had gone, and no-one wanted to know Steve Rogers anymore. Captain America was all they cared about, and today Captain America had a publicity visit to do. Some idea of Peppers’, something about community gardens. It wasn’t a horrible prospect, and normally Steve would do anything to escape from the Tower to the peace of a garden for a few hours, but today, with cameras and journalists and the Mayor of New York and the media circus which went along with anything that Tony Stark did these days, he wasn’t so sure that he wanted this at all. 

Correction. Steve Rogers wanted to visit a garden and paint the way the rain looked on the windows. Captain America, who after all had started life as a performing monkey, would be the one doing a PR exercise. Sometimes, Steve felt as though his life now was even more out of control than it had been in the war, Steve Rogers looking out of Captain America’s eyes but unable to make himself known. Cap wanted things like World Peace and Freedom and Justice, but Steve Rogers, while he wanted all of those things just as fiercely, also had more human wants and needs. Cap, after all, was just a symbol, and symbols couldn’t get upset or depressed. Symbols didn’t have nightmares. Symbols didn’t feel loneliness. Cap was a symbol, but Steve Rogers was very much a person. 

The knock on his door signified that it was time to go. Mechanically, Steve picked up the shield from where it lay at the foot of his bed and clipped it onto the brace he wore on his back. He wasn’t wearing the full Cap outfit today, just a blue shirt and pressed khakis, but the shield went wherever he went these days. It was an unspoken rule that no-one around him questioned – Cap was never without his shield. Just one of those things. 

In the car ride on the way over to where the publicity stunt had been set up, Steve let himself become Captain America once more, hoping that when he arrived, the only thing people would see would be the symbol, even though he longed for someone, anyone, to see past that. 

The publicity visit was… not what he was expecting at all. Somehow, when Pepper had mentioned that the project was a rebuild allotment, he hadn’t imagined that it would be something straight out of his memories. A large square-ish patch of ground, obviously once a building, had been cleared of rubble to expose the soil. Twine-and-peg markings divided it up into smaller sub-divisions, each one intended for someone’s use, but only a few of the allotments had anything actually growing in them. There was a large wooden shed set up in the dead centre, with the words ‘Ground Zero Coffee House’ painted on the front in lopsided, childish letters. The shed was constructed partly out of bricks, partly plywood and partly steel girders which looked salvaged from the bones of the building which once occupied this site. The bare earth, second-hand farming equipment and smell of manure took Steve straight back to 1935, when America was in the grip of the Depression and food was scarce. Many families on his block had fought over bare patches of land just like this one in the desperate hope of securing a food source for the coming months. Tiny, newly-teenaged Steve Rogers had helped his aunt nurture the seeds she’d scraped from the inside of a bell pepper saved from last nights’ dinner into something resembling a plant – it had never given a crop of edible vegetables, but it had been… hopeful, all the same. To see that people, in this strange new age, were still growing things as a way of finding hope in the ruins of so much destruction (that he’d had a personal hand in, guilty as much as proud of his involvement in the so-called Battle of New York) was… an unexpected connection. Steve felt a wave of emotion stirring up in his stomach, but pushed it down and forced it back to sleep, because symbols don’t feel nostalgia. 

Cameras flashed in the faces of the assembled Avengers – Tony, Bruce, Natasha, Clint and Steve as well as Pepper, there to smooth everything over should the questions become awkward. She stepped forward into the bulk of the flashes, and Steve felt only a little guilty about using her body as a shield to block them out. The constant flashing bulbs set him on edge in a way he couldn’t quite pinpoint, something to do with dark European forests, the smell of mud and muzzle flashes in the dark. 

‘Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Ground Zero Allotments, a non-profit community initiative and recipient of a Stark Industries Germination Grant. Stark Industries is helping to repair the damage caused by the recent alien attack here in New York, which was successfully repelled by the Avengers.’ 

Peppers’ voice was cool and steady. Steve admired her and briefly wondered how many years of accumulated exposure to Tony Stark a person had to endure before press conferences seemed like the least terrifying way of doing things. That was unfair to Pepper, he mused as she continued to speak, the lady seemed to really love Tony, and from all he’d read she’s been a capable businesswoman long before she’d been the face of Stark Industries or Tony’s girlfriend. Some people were just born to lead, he thought. Not like him. He’d been useless before the serum, no-one paying any attention to him. What was it Tony had said? – “Everything special about him came out of a bottle?” Steve told himself that wasn’t the case, but sometimes he wished there was someone apart from himself who would say that. And besides, it had been a needle, thank you very much. 

Steve snapped his attention back to the proceedings at hand as he realised that Pepper had cleared her throat, everyone waiting for him to do his part. Oh, right. A benign display of Captain America’s strength. He turned to where a dark-haired man was waiting to his left, a thin sapling in a bag of dirt at his left side. Steve noticed that the man was attractive, in a dark-and-handsome kind of way, but more than that, he was smiling with kind grey eyes and plush pink lips in Steve’s direction, nodding surreptitiously towards the sapling and a waiting shovel. The man raised his eyebrows at Steve as their eyes met. 

Captain America snapped back online. Using only a tiny portion of his huge strength, he took the offered shovel and driving it deep into the earth with one swift movement. In three short dips of the shovel he’d excavated a hole large enough to plant the sapling. Using one hand only (and ignoring the camera flashes as he did so), Steve lifted the young tree and removed the plastic bag covering the root ball. Roots exposed, he gently lowered the tree into the ground, settling it into the hole he’d dug with small movements. Tony took up the shovel from where Steve had thrown it down and dug it into the pile of waiting dirt. He didn’t actually shovel anything, just looked down at Steve with his piercing dark eyes. A flash of understanding passed between the two men.

‘Y’know everyone, this just seems exhausting, shovelling in the dirt… Stark Industries will be gifting Ground Zero a state-of-the-art tractor to do all the hard work in future. So, there’s more time for other… delights. Speaking of, Pepper Potts, ladies and gentlemen, isn’t she magnificent?’ 

Tony threw up his arms and grinned at the waiting reporters, gesturing towards his girlfriend as he planted a solid kiss on her cheek. As obnoxious as Tony could be, he knew how to work the press and Steve was more than grateful to have their attention shifted away from him for the time being. Tony led the reporters away, babbling on about all the other wonderful and generous things that Stark Industries was going to do because Tony Stark was such a wonderful and generous man, and Steve was left standing in the hole he’d dug for himself, not at all sorry to be by himself again. 

Well, perhaps not quite by himself. The dark-haired man who’d handed him the tree before was standing by the edge of the hole, staring down at him. He extended his right hand and leaned down. 

‘Need a hand? That’s quite a ditch you’ve dug there.’ 

Steve was not expecting the Brooklyn accent that he heard in the other man’s voice, nor was he expecting quite such a gravelly tone from a man who couldn’t be much older than Steve was himself in his waking years. 

Steve smiled, small and strained. Did this man want to test his strength against Captain America? A cute story about himself saving Cap’s dignity when he got himself stuck? 

‘Thanks, but I can get myself out of here.’

The man shrugged.

‘I know you can, pal, but – easier with help.’

Steve ignored the outstretched hand and clambered out of the hole with ease. Tony and Pepper had guide the press over to the other side of the allotments by now, and the two men were alone. Steve got his first good look at the other man. He was almost as tall as Steve himself and looked heavily muscled, bulky where Steve was slim. His waist was thick and solid, shoulders almost as broad as Steve’s own. The man had large hands covered in smudges of dirt and little cuts, obviously roughened from working with them all day. His face was… beautiful? Yes, this man was beautiful. He had soft grey eyes, day-old stubble highlighting his cut cheekbones, and pouty pink lips. Under the stubble, Steve could make out a little cleft in his chin. It was unexpectedly adorable, making the model-perfect features of his face a little softer and younger. Chestnut brown hair was pulled back into a loose bun at the back of his head, but a few strands had escaped loose and the man was nervously tucking them behind his ears as he looked away.  
Feeling suddenly self-conscious of his height and bulk and very aware of how rude he’d just been, Steve held out his own hand to the quiet man. 

‘Sorry, I should have introduced myself. I’m… Steve. Rogers.’

The man’s grey eyes crinkled at the corners as he replied, a small smile curling his mouth upwards. 

‘James Barnes. I run this mud-pit.’

‘This is your… this is very impressive, Mr Barnes.’

James grimaced. ‘Please. Call me Bucky. I haven’t gone by my surname since I left the service.’

‘You served?’

‘Iraq. Two tours.’

Knowing the other man was a soldier and that soldiers were the same the world and century over, Steve felt confident enough to smile and snark back, ‘Europe. One tour, I guess.’ He knew he was being a little obnoxious, but it had been a long time since he’d been around another vet. 

Bucky grinned back at him and laughed softly. ‘I know who you are, pal.’

‘Oh, right.’ The smile dropped off Steve’s face. How could he forget? This man was talking to Cap, not Steve.

Bucky’s grey eyes went opaque for a second and a hint of nervousness showed on his face. 

‘I just meant… it’s nice to talk to another vet. We actually have an area reserved for recovering vets, they come down from the VA on Tuesdays and Thursdays to help out with the planting and such. Part of the ‘recovery’ process.’

Steve swallowed, throat suddenly tight. ‘Does it… help them?’

Bucky’s gaze turned soft. ‘Why don’t you come on down next Tuesday and find out? Might be nice for ya. Certainly helped me…’ Bucky’s voice trailed off and he rolled his left shoulder without looking like he knew he was doing it. 

Steve had never considered… ‘recovery’ – that was what SHIELD had talked about, but he’d declined the therapies they’d offered. No one had ever needed therapy before, what did everyone see in it nowadays? But then again, if it helped these other veterans…  
Perhaps, Steve thought, he might come along. Just to see what all the fuss was about. He was about to say just that to Bucky, when he caught his name being called on the breeze. Pepper was gesturing him over to their waiting car; their visit was over. 

‘Maybe I’ll see you on Tuesday then, then?’ Steve called back over his shoulder as he backed away towards Pepper and the press, not turning to face them until Bucky had replied with a grin, 

‘Yeah, just don’t wear your best shoes next time!’ Steve felt himself grin in reply for just a second before he turned to face the paparazzi.


	2. Breaking Ground

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve doesn't know why he keeps on returning to the allotments...

**Breaking Ground** \--------------------------------------------------------  
**June 2013** \-------------------------------------------------------------

The following Tuesday afternoon was blazing hot, and Bucky had rolled up the sleeves of his shirt as he transplanted some tiny strawberry plants from their pots into the ground, showing the crowd of veterans the correct amount of fertiliser to line their new homes with, how to push the replaced soil down with their fingers until the root ball was firmly held in the dirt, then water the ground just enough to set the new plant up but not enough to wash away the loose soil. He left a group of them sitting nervously on the ground, one of them always with their head up looking for danger. Bucky’s heart twisted as he remembered that feeling, looking out for your squad, always having someone to watch your six… he shook his head free of those memories before the urge to check for concealed weapons took him over, and turned towards the tea shed. He intended to make a fresh pot of coffee and rustle up some juice and biscuits for the school kids in the far corner, on a class day trip to their allotment to see how their new sunflowers were doing. Bucky watched the six-year olds dutifully watering the little shoots with brightly-coloured plastic watering cans, comparing whose shoots were the tallest and enjoying being allowed to get truly dirty at school. It was a good way to distract himself from thoughts of war, and he found himself thinking of Steve Rogers. 

Bucky hadn’t really expected Captain America to be so… unhappy. All the protective instincts he possessed had railed at the sadness in Steve’s eyes when he’d stood in the dirt, lost in thought and staring at the young tree as though it were a snake. He hadn’t meant to get so… protective, so quickly, but that was what Bucky did. Their conversation, well – as far as Bucky was concerned, he’d spoken to Steve Rogers, not Captain America, once he’d got onto the topic of vets and their volunteer program. 

Still, he didn’t expect Steve to show up the following Tuesday afternoon, brand-new work boots on his feet and a shy smile on his face. Bucky stopped when he saw Steve standing by the tea shed. His ridiculous shoulders were squeezed into a tiny white t-shirt and his jeans and boots were brand-new, and his hair was ridiculously neat, and he looked so lost and soft and helpless that Bucky thought of a growing puppy, not quite aware of his body and still unsure in his limbs. He couldn’t help but smile and wave as he approached. 

‘Hey, Steve.’

‘Hey, uh – Bucky. Is this ok? I mean, me being here, is it… a problem for you?’

‘I wouldn’t have asked you to come if it was gonna be a problem now, would I?’

Steve just stared at him as though he couldn’t believe it, and Bucky’s protective instincts surged into overdrive, which was ridiculous because Steve was a grown man and also, hello, Captain America, but there was something about him which Bucky had seen before, something hesitant and broken which matched the feeling he’d had when he came back from war and which he’d seen on the faces of other returned vets when they first started out. It was the face of a man with no place in the world, no connection and no roots. 

Well, that was going to change right now, Bucky promised himself. 

‘Come on then, come meet your new work buddies.’ Bucky led Steve over to the group of vets working on the far allotment. They’d moved on to the radishes now, silver-red little bulbs cradled in big, scarred hands. ‘Folks, this is Steve. Steve… folks.’ 

One by one the men and women introduced themselves, Steve giving a polite nod and a smile to each of them. Bucky shot a glance to the VA worker accompanying the group, who grimaced and picked up a spare trowel and a stack of radishes. 

‘Care to join us?’

Steve took the tiny bulbs delicately, as one would a baby. ‘I have no idea how to do this,’ he admitted. 

Bucky took pity on him. Poor helpless, huge, beautiful man. Wait – what? Beautiful? Where had that come from? Of course, media-icon-Captain-America was attractive, in an apple-pie kinda way, but up close, yeah, this Steve Rogers, with his guarded eyes and sulky mouth, his large, sure hands and concealed fragility – yeah, he was pretty beautiful. Bucky mulled that over as he showed Steve how to plant radishes in neat rows, how to tuck them in and water them, give each one enough space. 

He left Steve with the group as the sounds of a distant argument reached his ears with a sigh – what would it be this time? The allotments were always full of gossip and little disagreements, and Bucky had taken on the title of unofficial mediator. People had started to seek him out to resolve disagreements over tool ownership, trampling of seedlings, who had taken the last biscuit from the packet, and all other vitally important diplomatic issues like that. More often than not they ended with Bucky having to growl at grown men and women and remind them of the community guidelines nailed to the inside of the tea shed, but he didn’t mind. It was nice to be needed. 

By the time Bucky got back, the afternoon sun had made some of the men, including Steve, remove their shirts as they worked, and Bucky’s brain nearly blanked out at the sight of all those muscles, ridges of biceps bulging as Steve pushed bamboo canes into the ground to train the new strawberries to grow upright. It was certainly distracting, and it seemed he wasn’t the only one who thought so. Some of the women and other men were lazily watching Steve work, but Steve himself seemed so unaware of the effect he had on other people, so lost in the workflow he’d created, that Bucky felt slightly voyeuristic about watching him like this. He crossed over to Steve and the vets, shading his eyes with his good hand. It was time for the school group to take a juice break, so he’d made a pot of coffee for the grown-ups as well.

‘Working hard out here?’ he called out. Steve turned to him and blushed slightly, seeming awkward to be caught shirtless, which Bucky didn’t understand as he was the one who’d removed his shirt in the middle of the afternoon.

‘Coffee break, anyone? There’s a fresh pot just boiled.’

Watching Steve reach up and wipe his sweating forehead with the back of his hand felt obscene, but Bucky couldn’t help watching closely as Steve left a trail of mud over his brow. Bucky’s fingers itched to wipe that mud away. He looked away as Steve bent and scooped up his shirt from where he’d left it on the ground. The two of them fell into step as they joined the back of the queue for coffee. Bucky, knowing how fast arguments could arise where children and biscuits were involved, gestured for Steve to follow him to the trestle table with refreshments on it. He didn’t know why he was singling Steve out like this, or, well – he did know, but he didn’t really want to think about that right now.

‘You keep the kids from sneaking too many biscuits? I’ll help with the drinks.’

Steve didn’t say anything in reply, just kept that slightly confused expression on his face as he watched Bucky separate mugs and pour juice for the lined-up school kids. Suddenly seeming to snap out of his head with a grimace, Bucky saw Steve reach out and tentatively open a pack of biscuits out of the corner of his eye, and smiled to himself. 

The two men supervised as the kids helped themselves to juice and biscuits, and Steve seemed to loosen up just a little as he did so. Bucky couldn’t help but notice that Steve was painfully awkward around children, like he had never encountered one before, the distant way he watched them as they drank their juice and dribbled biscuit crumbs down their tops. Once all the school-kids had been corralled into a neat bundle, seated and semi-quiet, by their teachers, Steve silently poured himself a cup of coffee, then, unsure and trying to hide it, shuffled to the end of the table and stood there by himself. He stayed apart from the rest of the vets as he quietly re-filled his mug with coffee for the second time and took a seat a little way away from everyone else. Steve did everything quietly, realised Bucky. Quietly, efficiently and independently. Perfectly self-sufficient and self-contained. Bucky’s feet carried him over to the vacant chair next to Steve almost before he knew what he was doing, and he sighed as he finally got to take the weight of his feet for the first time in hours. 

Steve and Bucky sat in silence, drinking coffee and watching the scene in front of them, but Bucky couldn’t help noticing that Steve was stiff and nervous in his seat, and had been since Bucky sat down. Bucky sighed and leaned over to talk quietly. Steve, perhaps out of politeness more than anything else seeing as he had perfect hearing, leaned in to listen to him talk. 

‘See Josie over there? With the long hair? She’s the one who organises the volunteer groups from the VA. You should talk to her if you wanna join in, get an idea of when they come down.’

Steve turned his head slightly towards Bucky so that he was not quite in profile, and Bucky could see his jaw clench and unclench before he replied. 

‘Isn’t the VA for… you know, soldiers? I wouldn’t want to intrude. But thanks.’

‘You’re a vet too though, aren’t you?’ asked Bucky, genuinely surprised. 

‘It’s not the same,’ came Steve’s quiet reply. 

‘Sure it is. You fought, you survived, you came home.’ Steve closed his eyes as Bucky continued, ‘that means you’re a vet just as much as I am or any one of these guys are. You don’t have to believe me but, like I said, and I’m just saying, if you want to help out here, you could join the community gardening program at the VA. Or not, if that’s not your thing.’

Bucky only realised he had stepped over some kind of line when Steve remained motionless with his eyes closed for a long time after Bucky stopped speaking, body tense and breathing heavily through his nose. Steve’s eyelids fluttered slightly and Bucky’s heart jumped a little in his chest. When Steve opened his eyes and let out a long whooshing breath, he smiled an overly-bright Captain-America-smile back at Bucky, dazzling and bland all at the same time. 

‘Thank you for your service.’

Bucky’s heart slumped. Oh well, he’d tried. Bucky massaged the back of his neck as Steve got up and walked away. He cleared the empty coffee cups onto a plastic tray and took them into the tea shed to be washed. Bucky could hear the splashing of the tap and the clinking of Steve washing up. He didn’t try to follow him, just turned his head and looked out at everything they had done since the world blew up, all the things he’d made grow and all the people he’d brought together, and felt, not for the first time, overwhelmingly proud.  
\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Steve couldn’t stop thinking about Bucky on the journey back to Stark Tower. People never suspected that Captain America would take the subway, so Steve Rogers was able to get away with hunching over and pulling his baseball cap over his eyes as he rode the swaying carriage and pulled out his phone to check the news. That was another difference between Captain America and Steve Rogers – Cap was a good old-fashioned guy from the forties who had never heard of the internet, but Steve Rogers was wildly fascinated by all the gadgets and technology that this century could offer and had the New York subway map memorised in his head after two days. The more futuristic, the better, as far as Steve was concerned. 

He stayed lost in thoughts of Bucky and the community gardens all through that evening, even after Bruce cooked a mean curry which tasted bland to Steve but had Clint and Tony gasping for a glass of milk, and all through what Tony had christened ‘Family Movie Night’ when they watched something that had war, alien experiments and found-family feelings: Lilo and Stitch. Tony, for some reason, thought it was hilarious and kept on calling Steve ‘Experiment 626’ for the rest of the evening. 

Something about those gardens would not leave him alone. Living, green plants, vines twisting and sprouting; beauty and medicine and food and shelter and people and sunshine and everything that his world lacked. Not to mention, the man who seemed to have made it all possible was one of the most beautiful and intriguing people Steve had ever encountered. 

Steve wasn’t naïve, despite what the propaganda reels might say, and the internet was a thing of beauty. He’d found words and flags and communities online, a few of which he might even use to describe himself – bisexual, biromantic, closeted. Of course, back when he’d been growing up there’d been only one word for those sorts of feelings; wrong. Back in Brooklyn in the thirties, he’d dared social norms and lived in one of the most open gay neighbourhoods in the city and although it had been illegal and definitely not something a good Catholic boy should have been doing, Steve couldn’t keep himself away from the bathhouses at night where men gathered to make time. He’d never actually… touched another man, but he’d seen plenty. Tiny, skinny Steve Rogers had been a pervert and he’d assumed it would be just one more defect that the serum would cure – but when those feelings had persisted even after he’d become Captain America, Steve began to think, began to hope, even, that these feelings, these… urges, didn’t make him dirty and wrong and defective like the rest of the world seemed to think. 

Here in the new century, those feelings were confirmed. Steve knew that he wasn’t defective for feeling an attraction to another man, but it had been so long since another person had held his interest like Bucky did that he couldn’t be sure that the magnetic pull he felt towards the dark-haired man wasn’t just the effect of one genuine personal connection on a very lonely man. In short, it was probably a good idea to get to know Bucky a little better before Steve would allow himself to hope that the connection could be something more than friendly. 

 

Heading back to his floor at Avengers Tower later that night, Steve went through his usual evening routines of making a solitary cup of tea, reading his book and looking up all the references he didn’t understand, showering and getting ready for another lonely night. He fell asleep in his enormous bed, grateful that he generated enough body heat these days to make sleeping alone a little less terrible.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come and visit me on my tumblr, I'm [ Kateyfish](kateyfish.tumblr.com) over there.


	3. Putting down roots

Putting down roots------------------------------------------------------  
August – September 2013 -----------------------------------------------

 

Bucky watched the Avengers battle giant evil robots in Sokovia on the crappy TV screen in his apartment. He kept a watchful eye on any footage of Steve that appeared on screen, noting the way he stood firm despite being streaked with soot and dirt. When the city came crashing down from the sky, Bucky leapt forward to press his hands to the screen, not taking them off until the shaky, grimy news camera zoomed in on Steve and the other Avengers helping civilians off the evacuation planes. He slumped backwards, his heart beating in his throat. On-screen Steve had a gash down his face and blood soaking through his uniform. 

When Steve arrived at the allotments the following Thursday, Bucky subtly checked out the healed cut on his face. It didn’t even look like it was going to scar, and despite only being a few days old it was already almost gone. Steve brought other people with him this time; an older grey-haired man who Bucky recognised as Dr Bruce Banner, and a young woman with long red-brown hair and big, defiant eyes. She twirled her fingers around each plant as she passed them, then stopped to inspect a dying tomato vine while Steve chatted to Bruce. Bucky caught a flash of red out of the corner of his eye, and when he whipped his head around, the tomato plant was fruiting and growing at an alarming rate, and the young woman was standing an innocent distance away looking hard at the ground.

Bucky assigned a spare allotment to Bruce that afternoon, who immediately set to work on a small medicinal herb garden and installing a large honeysuckle-covered trellis under which Bucky would see him meditate in the early mornings when no-one else was around. Within the week, Bruce had coaxed a frost-grape vine to trail up and over a small bamboo seat which he kept underneath the trellis. Seeing the usually-nervous Avenger seated, calm and quiet in the middle of the New York traffic, never failed to make Bucky smile. It was a good feeling to know that other people needed the quiet reassurance and steadiness of the gardens to feel centred as much as he did. Besides, Bruce was actually a nice guy under all the nerves and twitching. The first few times he came around, it was in the early mornings or late evenings when there were fewer people around, but after a few weeks he joined Bucky for a cup of coffee one morning and from then on, Bruce’s dry sarcastic humour was a constant presence as long as there was a pot of coffee on the boil in the communal tea shed. 

 

As for the young woman – Wanda – she didn’t get a plot of her own, despite Steve’s encouragement. Instead, Wanda spent her time coaxing ailing plants in other people’s plots back to health. At first, Bucky tried to shoo her out of people’s allotments, but once he saw that she was only trying to help, he left her to her weird red power and strange obsession with tomato plants. He slowly grew used to the sight of the red wisps of her magic curling around limp green plants leaves and delicate stems. She would appear from among suddenly-flourishing bushes at odd times, or lie on her back down the shaded paths, gently supporting the drooping white flowers of an ill-looking cotton-bush until the plant bloomed, despite that particular species not being native to anywhere near New York. Gradually, the people who came to the allotments knew to seek Wanda out when vegetable blight, greenfly or leaf-dropsy threatened their plots, and Bucky smiled to himself at the reverent way Wanda handed each growing life form. 

Despite her mission to save the tomato plants of New York from an early death, Wanda unnerved Bucky slightly, and if he was being honest with himself, he’d rather leave her in peace than face her hard, perceptive stare. The first day that Bucky heard Wanda speak was the day they had to haul a young olive tree out of the ground in the Yiannopolis family plot; it had been inadvisable to plant a Mediterranean olive outside in New York but the family had done it anyway, something about remembering their grandfather.   
\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The young olive tree had withered, weakened and died, and Sofia Yiannopolis, the matriarch of the family, had asked Bucky for his help removing the tree. Apparently, none of her good-for-nothing grandsons would help out their poor old Yiayia with the weeding that summer so why should she have thought they would want to help with this? And her daughter, hah, she had married an American man and he was not, in Sofia’s opinion, a real man. He ate… tofu. Tofu! Sofia threw her hands up in despair at that as Bucky stoically dug away at the tree roots. He barely registered that Sofia had stopped talking until he heard her soft voice murmuring ‘… nice young man…’ and turned to look out of the hole he’d dug, shading his eyes against the low sun. 

Steve was standing there, helplessly submitting to having his cheek pinched by Sofia as she smiled beatifically up at him. 

‘… so good to me, you boys…’ she said as Steve turned and gave Bucky a shy look.

‘Heya, uh – Buck? You want some help with that?’

‘Why, do I not look like I’m winning this battle?’ Bucky joked up at Steve. He was silhouetted against the sun, making his outline glimmer as though he had a halo. 

‘Looks like it might be time for a tactical withdrawal, Sergeant.’ Steve smiled shyly down at Bucky, whose heart was not ready to be teased by gorgeous men. Bucky lumbered up out of the hole, very aware of his unbalanced bulk and dirty hands. Steve often looked like he could dig holes from morning to night and not get a speck of dirt on him, but then Bucky remembered the way the grime of Sokovia looked on the TV screen, stuck to Steve’s uniform and dulling the shine of his blond hair. 

As soon as Bucky was out of the hole, Steve jumped in. Managing to look both shy and eager at the same time – and thank God he was wearing a shirt today otherwise that combination of shy smile and bulging muscles would have done Bucky in – and without even a second thought, wrapped his hands around the trunk of the sapling and yanked it out of the ground, roots and all. Dumbstruck, Bucky watched as he tossed – yes, tossed, as though it weighed nothing – the uprooted tree onto the ground beside the hole and jumped lightly out, the picture of grace. Mrs Yiannopolis beamed and hugged Steve, tugging on his arm as she showered him in compliments. Over her head, Steve caught Bucky’s eye and flashed him a shit-eating grin. Bucky opened his mouth in reply, still unprepared for the flashes of competitiveness and mischief that lurked behind Steve’s “aww-shucks-ma’am” exterior. 

Bucky clutched a hand to his chest in mock outrage and Steve smiled harder, eyes remaining locked for a second before Mrs Yiannopolis dragged Steve away so that he could help her weed out her geraniums. 

Shaking his head and still grinning to himself under the curtain of his hair, Bucky turned to lug the young sapling over to the woodpile, but found Wanda in his path. She was watching him with amusement in her dark eyes, twirling one strand of hair around a finger. 

‘You like him.’ she stated in her soft accent.

‘Who – Steve? Yeah, he’s a great guy. I mean, that kind of comes with the P.R. image but he really is as good as the propaganda films say he was, isn’t he?’

Wanda raised her eyebrows at Bucky’s deliberate misdirection.

‘I grew up watching those old films. Even in Sokovia he is a public figure. He’s not exactly like those films though, is he?’ Wanda’s eyes seemed to be daring Bucky to misunderstand her.

‘No… no, he’s not.’ Bucky looked over to where Steve was kneeling in Mrs Yiannopolis’ allotment, pulling up tiny green shoots in his big hands. ‘He’s so much more human than they ever made him out to be.’

Wanda stared for a second.

‘I just hope you know how much. Don’t fuck it up,’ she said, now outright glaring at him, before stalking past Bucky on the path to save a patch full of ailing fennel plants. 

Was that… was that meant to be some kind of… shovel talk?

Well. If Bucky was being honest with himself, it worked. Wanda was clearly protective of Steve, and Bucky was wary enough of Wanda’s red power to make her menacing words hit home. 

Bucky shook his head as he hauled the log the rest of the way and balanced it on top of the pile he had yet to chop. Dusting off his hands, Bucky breathed in the comforting, organic smells of the woodpile, the tang of dark, wet soil and emerald-green moss growing in sheltered corners, the familiar sweet decay of leaf mould and uprooted weeds in the compost pile nearby. Bucky breathed deep and let the scents of growth and decay seep into him. He could do this. This, right here, was his centre, life and death and growing things and warm light heating up damp wood – this here and this now, these were the things that kept him human. 

Bucky wondered what kept Steve human. 

After taking several long breaths, Bucky returned to the quiet corner of the allotments that he’d marked out for himself. Wanda watched him out of the corner of her eye from where she knelt with her fingertips buried in the soil, her eyes opaque but kind. 

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
Steve Rogers was also watching Bucky as he stood, stock still and eyes closed with his hands resting on the makeshift fence at the end of the woodpile. Steve watched as his breathing, which was a little heavy from dragging and heaving that sapling, evened out, became calm and steady and measured. Steve’s excellent eyesight enabled him to pick out the way Bucky’s eyelashes fluttered as he took a deep breath, and as he did so, something in Steve’s own stomach fluttered in reply. Mrs Yiannopolis, who was hanging off his arm and promising to feed him up because he was “too skinny, you young men these days don’t appreciate your mama cooking,” actually stopped talking and looked up at him when she said that. Steve tried to push thoughts of his own mother and her Depression-era cooking out of his mind, but… 

His mother would have loved a place like this, a chance to grow their own food and not have to rely on her meagre income as a nurse in order to eat through the winter. Steve thought that his mother, if she’d had the chance to grow old like Mrs Yiannopolis, would have become happy and fat on her own plot of land somewhere upstate where Steve would have moved her after he’d returned from the war and his mother had retired, somewhere they could sit quietly and she could return to health and they could both be alone with their lives. Steve thought quite a lot about what his mother would say if she was live today, not all of it positive. If she could see him now…

Steve realised with a jerk that he’d completely zoned out, lost in his own mind, and that Mrs Yiannopolis was looking up at him with a kind, expectant expression, as though she’d asked him a question which needed to be answered. 

‘I’m sorry Mrs Yiannopolis, could you repeat that please ma’am?’

‘I was just saying that you should come to my house for Sunday dinner, I’ll make you a traditional Greek meal. Someone needs to feed you up, and you with no wife to do that, look at you all skin and bones.’

How anyone could look at Captain America and think he was all skin and bones was beyond Steve, but wow, didn’t that remind him of growing up? Back then, he really had been all skin and bones, oversized ears and rough hands and delicate, feeble limbs. Scoliosis and asthma and a bum heart and a faulty immune system and… and… it had been so long since anyone had looked at Steve and seen the skinny, underfed weakling, so long since anyone had assumed that he needed looking after, so long since anyone had told him that he needed feeding up, that all of a sudden Steve was overwhelmed by a tidal wave of his own emotions. Everything in his life was too much, but at the same time his life was so painfully not enough in all the areas where it counted, and Steve wanted nothing more than to get away from everything and everyone who had ever heard of Steve Rogers. He didn’t remember what he mumbled to Mrs Yiannopolis by way of an apology but the next thing he knew he was turning out of the allotments and down the nearest street at the fastest pace he could muster in the middle of a crown of civilians in the middle of New York, tears blinked back into the corners of his eyes and fists clenched so tight Steve swore he could hear his bones creak. 

 

It took a while, but Steve came back to himself. It took a while, but there he was. Took a while to realise that the slapping noise was the East River below him, the feeling under his hands – that was metal. The feeling in his fingers and toes was cold. He was perched on a low wall with a metal railing in front of him, looking over the Brooklyn Bridge.

It was evening; the sky had darkened. 

Dusk, right. That was what happened when time passed. 

Steve stretched out his cold fingers and turned his face to the sky. The fiery orange-streaked sky was now mostly obscured by storm clouds which hung low on the horizon and built up, miles into the atmosphere so that the setting sun looked like it was being buried in grey. A storm was coming up the river and Steve knew from the cold, damp wind which pressed against his face that it would be a bad one. His memory flashed back to warm nights spent in European forests with the Howlies; mist clinging to dark pine trees and campfire lights that were eaten up by the darkness… but then the next moment he was back in his own body, back in Brooklyn with no mist and no pine and no war and no Howlies. 

The first fat drops of rain started to fall as Steve picked himself up from where he sat and cast around for the fastest way back to Avengers Tower. He was nowhere near a subway station; he’d have to walk for a bit. Oh well, it wasn’t like he minded getting wet, and it was warm enough that he was unlikely to flash back to anything… darker. 

As Steve set out in what he thought was the direction of the nearest subway station, the rain started to pound harder. The last streaks of orange were covered up by bruised grey-purple clouds the colour of the fragrant lavender which Bruce grew in his plot at the allotments, and even though the sun had not completely set yet, the clouds were thick enough that the whole world grew dim. Light seemed to shine out of the shop-fronts and cafés as though he were walking through an Edward Hopper painting, only far, far less convivial. His shirt saturated, Steve started to shiver, and he was just wondering if he should have called Tony to ask Happy to come and pick him up when he heard someone calling his name from behind him. He tensed, but it was unlikely that anyone calling his name would be about to attack him. Steve was not prepared to see Bucky when he turned, however, but the sight of him strolling along tucked under an enormous golfing umbrella was just enough for Steve to want to cling to him and never let go. Only Bucky’s ankles and shoes seemed wet, but the rest of him, wrapped up in a light coat and safely out of the worst of the rain, was still dry. Bucky looked so cosy and warm and well-cared for that Steve wanted to hug Bucky and have him pet his hair and tell him stories. He had a plastic shopping bag dangling from one hand which looked heavy and unwieldy, a clue as to why he would be out in this weather. Without hesitation, Bucky reached out an arm to Steve and tucked the soaking man into his side, warmth immediately soaking into his chest.

‘Steve! What are you doing out here without an umbrella? You’ll catch your death of cold, or – well, you probably won’t but you know what I mean.’

‘Is it raining? Didn’t even… notice,’ Steve gritted out from between teeth that would not stop chattering, and for heaven’s sake he was a grown man and a super-soldier, he should be able to deal with a summer rain storm without becoming as pathetic as a wet cat, right? 

Bucky, seemingly immune to the cold, slung one arm around Steve’s shoulders and pulled him even closer, shifting the umbrella so that it covered both of them, although it was a little harder with Steve’s shoulders to deal with. Not that Bucky’s shoulders were any less impressive, Steve thought, biting his lip and trying to be subtle about snuggling under Bucky’s warm arm as they dashed through the heavy rain in perfect step with each other. 

The rain seemed to melt everything outside of the umbrella’s protective brim, so that the curtains of rain streaming down just outside Steve’s ankles marked the edges of their own little world. Even the traffic hum and the warm café glow seemed to fade away, the sidewalks merging into the middle distance as Bucky tugged him along. Even though he was slightly taller than Bucky and had a metabolism that meant he ran hot most of the time, Steve still relished in the warmth that he could feel radiating out from Bucky’s body even through his jacket, and tried to maximise every millimetre of contact he could, pressing his shoulder into the armpit of Bucky’s jacket and huddling his arms into his centre. Steve thought longingly about hot showers and steaming cups of coffee, the meagre comfort of his room at the tower with the heat turned up and layers of blankets to hide underneath, as the two men turned a corner and a sudden cold wind blew his sodden shirt against his body, making him shiver even more. An image of Bucky cuddled up with him in his apartment sprang into Steve’s mind but he pushed it down immediately, afraid to admit even to himself that he might have found someone to let in. Besides, he could never bring anyone back to the tower if he didn’t want them to be immediately subjected to excruciating torture in the form of having to make small talk with Tony and endure Vision’s “cooking,” so really, it was best for him to stop fantasizing about something he could never have, right? The guy who wanted stability and a loving family had died in the Valkyrie over seventy years ago now; someone else had come back, and whoever he was now, Steve knew that a happy ending was never going to be in his stars. 

Lost in thought again, Steve almost didn’t notice when Bucky slowed down. It was only him taking a wide step to put them both under a shop awning that brought Steve back to reality. Bucky was saying something, trying to hand him the umbrella and pointing out into the storm, but it took a moment for even Steve’s serum-enhanced hearing to focus in on his words. 

‘… and the subway station’s right over there, you know where you are? Can you get home from there?’

‘Huh? Oh, sure Buck. Uh – thanks – thank you. I’ll see you next week?’

‘Hey Steve, Stevie, just take the damn umbrella will you? I only stepped out to get more milk and my apartments really nearby here, I can deal with the rain.’

‘I can’t take your umbrella! I can get by on my own, really.’

Bucky gave Steve a long look during which Steve couldn’t help squirming, just a little. Eventually, hesitantly in stark contrast to the confidence with which he had thrown his arm around Steve a few minutes before, Bucky reached out and gripped Steve’s shoulder lightly. He tilted his head a little so that his next words were more intimate somehow. 

‘I know you can, Steve. Thing is, you don’t have to. Just because you don’t need it, doesn’t mean you can’t want it. ’

That – that absolutely floored Steve, because people didn’t tend to notice when he was struggling. Captain America was an indestructible super-human who didn’t need umbrellas, he was probably kept dry by his love for justice or something like that, but Steve Rogers – he was just as capable of getting soaked through by a torrential downpour as the next guy, and just as capable of becoming demoralised and downhearted, even if he couldn’t catch his death of cold anymore. 

Bucky’s grey eyes were burning into Steve’s, visible even in the dim light of the neon subway sign but looking strangely far away. Numbly, Steve took the umbrella that was pressed into his hands, nodded once and turned to jog down the stairs to the subway station. He didn’t notice Bucky watching him go with a sad smile on his face.


	4. Falling Leaves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky had only just got used to seeing Steve twice a week when he stopped visiting the allotments. At first, Bucky didn’t notice, so used to Steve being there at certain times of certain days that he’d stopped looking out for him, just expecting him to be there. Steve was a steady presence in the VA community vegetable patch and a solid helper if any visiting school groups became a little rowdy. It shouldn’t have been so endearing to see Steve so nervous about interacting with small children, but once they discovered that Nice Mr Steve could give them as many shoulder-carries as they wanted without getting fatigued, and would read them as many stories as they liked once they’d crawled into his lap because he was too helpless to get them to leave, they loved him, and that in turn made Bucky feel… something stirring sweetly in his stomach whenever he saw Steve around the allotments.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter gets a little heavy, folks. There is Steve having a panic attack and talking about isolation/ depression and Steve using some deprecating language to refer to himself. Stay safe friends - if this is not your thing, check the end notes before you read, and if you would like to talk to me about this chapter, come and see on on my [Tumblr](www.kateyfish.tumblr.com)

Falilng Leaves------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
October - December 2013--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Bucky had only just got used to seeing Steve twice a week when he stopped visiting the allotments. At first, Bucky didn’t notice, so used to Steve being there at certain times of certain days that he’d stopped looking out for him, just expecting him to be there. Steve was a steady presence in the VA community vegetable patch and a solid helper if any visiting school groups became a little rowdy. It shouldn’t have been so endearing to see Steve so nervous about interacting with small children, but once they discovered that Nice Mr Steve could give them as many shoulder-carries as they wanted without getting fatigued, and would read them as many stories as they liked once they’d crawled into his lap because he was too helpless to get them to leave, they loved him, and that in turn made Bucky feel… something stirring sweetly in his stomach whenever he saw Steve around the allotments. 

The kids loved Captain America, sure, but they also loved Nice Mr Steve, the teachers made obvious heart-eyes at him whenever he so much as smiled in their direction, and Bucky… well, Bucky was having trouble keeping his own heart from beating a military tattoo every time he looked across the patch and saw Steve kneeling, trowel abandoned in the dirt next to him as he used his ridiculously large hands to re-plant young shoots, gently tucking compost down around their root-balls with his bottom lip caught between his teeth as he did so. 

Steve just seemed to fit into the routine and community of the allotments so well that Bucky could be forgiven for not immediately noticing his absence. At the end of one Tuesday afternoon though, when the last of the VA groups had left and Bucky was absent-mindedly pulling ragwort out of the compost buckets, he realised that he hadn’t spoken to Steve at all that day. Weeds in hand, Bucky paused and frowned to himself. Come to think of it, he hadn’t even seen Steve that day, something which was becoming more and more unusual as Steve grew bolder about starting conversations with him. 

Steve… wasn’t there? 

Steve wasn’t there and Bucky hadn’t noticed – or maybe Steve had been there and Bucky hadn’t noticed. Bucky was supposed to be looking out for his team, and he’d let Steve come and go without checking in… 

 

This was bad. Bucky might not be much of a Sergeant these days but he knew a thing or two about taking care of people. Captain America could handle himself in battle, sure, but Bucky knew that Steve Rogers suffered for it afterwards. He’d seen Steve’s eyes after he’d been out Captaining the Avengers in the aftermath of the Battle of New York, he’d seen the flinches and the bruises and the twitches. Steve was obviously not taking care of himself the way he should. 

But why does he need you to take care of him, whispered a sinister part of Bucky’s brain. He doesn’t need to be taken care of, he probably doesn’t want to be taken care of, and definitely not by you. 

Well, answered the voice in Bucky’s head which sounded suspiciously like his mother, there’s no harm to be done by making things easier for someone else. He didn’t have to advertise that fact to Steve, but what if Steve was hurt this very minute without Bucky there to take care of him – what if he was alone and hurting? Sure, the Avengers could probably take care of Steve on the battlefield, and there was the matter of his super human healing factor, but what about after the battle? Bucky hoped that Steve had someone to go home to, some nice plump girlfriend perhaps, who’d make him tea and let Steve put his head in her lap as they lay on the sofa together. It helped, to think of Steve having that domesticity, and even if a part of him wanted that for himself, well, he had developed plenty of ways to take his mind off his own loneliness. 

Still though, even if Steve did have a plump tea-brewing girlfriend, Bucky still – he still wanted to make sure that Steve was doing ok. Bucky reluctantly dropped the ragwort on the bonfire pile and frowned. The air was getting colder, maybe Steve just didn’t want to come out over winter? That was a perfectly reasonable explanation, as were the millions of other reasons why Captain America might be too busy to visit a tiny community allotment on a given weekday. He was fine, Bucky was sure that he was fine and that he would be back there the next week because he was fine, making awkward small talk and avoiding Bucky’s eye like usual. He would be fine. 

Except he wasn’t. 

Steve didn’t return the next week, or the week after that. Bucky thought of him and imagined horror after horror as he furiously planted late carrots and sweet peas in his own little allotment. He thought about endless missions in secret, dusty locations as he erected the frame for a tiny greenhouse that would keep his rosemary plants warm throughout the winter, thought about cramped field camps and terrible rations as he placed the panes of glass in their frames; remembered his own experiences with cold nights spent watching distant targets under unfamiliar stars as he brought his delicate herb trays inside for the winter before the early frosts could burn their roots. 

The only other Avengers who could sometimes be found scratching in his own allotment was suspiciously tight-lipped on his whereabouts, something that Bucky did not fail to notice the first time he asked Bruce. The only answer he could get out of the nervous older man was that no, he couldn’t say where Captain Rogers had gone to and no, he couldn’t say when he’d be back. As October dragged on, Bruce cut his Echinacea plants into strips and made them into a bitter tea which he tried to force upon anyone who so much as sniffled in his vicinity. Poor Wanda could be seen downing cup after cup as her first American winter left her immune system vulnerable to every strain of flu and fever that plagued New York, stalking along the rows of hardy winter lavender plants and muttering dark plans involving turmeric and nettle bark. Wanda and Bruce were the only two Avengers who regularly came to the allotments, although sometimes Bucky would see a flame-haired woman in large sunglasses standing apart, watching the goings-on without interacting or speaking with anyone, or hear the low-gear purr of an expensive vintage car pulling up to the curb and Tony Stark’s recognisable voice chattering away to someone on the other end of a phone line. It was a statistical anomaly how many Avengers could be found at the community allotments during that month, and a trick of the heart how none of them could be the person Bucky was looking for. 

Just as suddenly as he’d disappeared, one day Steve was just… there again. When Steve finally appeared again in the second week of November he looked somewhat thinner, and was even quieter than before if that was possible. The bulbs which Steve had helped the VA volunteers to plant in the summer had withered due to the cold snap. The only bright green spot was the fennel patch, on which Wanda had lavished attention and magic back in the late summer. It was still producing bulb after bulb, for some reason the only actively growing thing in the whole site, and Bucky arrived early one morning to find Steve sitting listlessly on the ground by the rows of fennel, hands fisted in his lap and head bowed. 

Although Bucky could see his breath in the air, Steve was wearing only what looked like running gear without any concession to the freezing cold weather. A long bandage snaked up one arm but apart from that, Bucky couldn’t see any physical injury. The bags under his eyes though, those looked as though they had stuck around for weeks. Bucky thought about how the allotment must have changed since Steve had seen it last. He’d left a riot of colour and activity, and come back to an ice-covered wasteland abandoned by all but the hardiest of gardeners. He wasn’t all that surprised when he saw Steve’s shoulders tighten and shake as he watched. 

Bucky had seen enough. He approached Steve slowly, making sure that he was in his line of sight and making enough noise that he wouldn’t be startled. Although Bucky could see that Steve had noticed his approach, he didn’t look up until Bucky was only an arm’s length away from him and was speaking to him as kindly as he could manage. 

‘Steve? Hey, Steve? Can I come and sit next to you, pal?’

Steve just shrugged, so Bucky took that as an affirmative. He took two steps forward and seated himself on the iron-hard ground right next to Steve. After a moments’ indecision, he inched his right hand forward until he thought it was in Steve’s vision, giving him ample time to back away. 

‘Can I give you a hug?’ Bucky whispered, but Steve just shuddered in reply. He tilted his face away from Bucky and sniffed a little, wiping his nose on his sleeve. 

‘… don’t wanna hug me right now, I’m gross…’ Steve’s voice was stuffy with tears, feeble and rough and not at all like the voice that Bucky was used to hearing. 

‘You’re not gross,’ Bucky replied gently, but he didn’t move to hug Steve. He needed to be so careful here because Steve seemed so breakable right now, delicate as the frost-rimed cobwebs which crossed the nettle beds and could be entirely destroyed with a single swipe of his hand. 

‘What do you need, Steve?’ 

Silence. More sniffing. Steve curled in on himself so that his forehead was almost touching his knees. 

Bucky thought back to what his own therapist suggested for when he was Dealing With Some Shit ™ and carefully kept himself a respectful distance away from Steve while he started talking, nonsensical boring things calmly stated in a level voice. Bucky told Steve stories of the allotments. How the school from three blocks over stopped bringing their kids over because one girl ate a slug and the parents complained; the way that Jenny and Marta each slipped each other admiring glances when they thought the other wasn’t looking; how the tomato plants were faring and how a group of Scarlet-Witch fan-boys had snuck into the allotments and been found eating as many of Wanda’s wonder-veggies as they could in the hope that they too would have a sparkly red power one day. At least, Bucky remarked, they were getting their vitamin C. He let a little giggle escape when he told Steve how he’d had to be Scary Sergeant Barnes until the fan-boys promised not to eat any more of other people’s veggies without asking, and he couldn’t be certain but he thought that maybe Steve huffed out a little laugh too. 

Although at first he wasn’t sure if he was helping or even if Steve was listening, after he’d talked long enough that the sun had started to burn off the frost and Bucky’s ass had gone numb and tingly, Steve sighed and straightened into a sitting position. 

Bucky waited for Steve to look at him, but he never did. Instead, Steve stood up, straightened out his shirt, and gave one last sniff. 

‘Bucky…’ Steve swallowed loudly and Bucky’s heart went out to him. He knew how difficult it could be to admit that you needed someone. Bucky’s thoughts raced – he didn’t know how it worked for supersoldiers, but if Steve were human Bucky would try to get him out of the cold and get him to drink something warm and sweet. 

‘It’s ok. Hey, wanna grab some coffee? There’s a great café over the road that does amazing cinnamon rolls.’

Steve’s face scrunched.

‘Cinnamon rolls?’

‘Yeah. They’re delicious.’ 

‘I’ve never tried cinnamon rolls,’ Steve admitted, and Bucky knew he had Steve hooked. He stood, brushed the dirt off his pants, and started back along the path to the road. 

‘Come on. No time like the present.’

Bucky waited for Steve to catch up to him before the two of them followed the path back to the road. 

The coffee shop was bright and warm, a tiny space with booths set along one wall and a long counter against the other. Bucky let Steve go in first as it seemed to calm him, then crowded in behind him as the door swung shut and stayed still for a few moments, letting Steve take it all in. 

The walls were butter-yellow, the furniture light and wooden, the interior heated to the perfect temperature to warm a frozen super-soldier, and the scent of coffee and buttered pastries hung tantalisingly in the air. Steve moved as though he was in a dream, looking around like he wasn’t sure how he got there, so Bucky gently guided him into a booth at the back end of the shop with a good view, the stepped away to order them both hot chocolate and cinnamon rolls. When he returned, Steve looked a lot more alert, blinking and rubbing his hands together. 

‘Hey, you didn’t have to do this. I’m fine.’

Bucky regarded Steve with the most gentle, un-judgemental look he could summon up. 

‘Pal, I know a thing or two about being “fine.” And the first thing I can tell you is that crying in the middle of a vegetable patch in the middle of November ain’t “fine.” So. You don’t have to tell me what’s wrong, heck it’s probably all classified anyway, but you also don’t have to pretend with me. I guess you’ve probably had a lot of people tell you this but it’s ok to not be ok.’

‘… no, actually.’

‘Huh?’

‘No-one’s told me that. That its ok to… to…’

‘Your therapist not have a million of those little phrases? I know mine does.’

‘… don’t have a therapist.’

‘Oh. Sorry, I… shouldn’t have assumed. It’s just…’

‘-just that when you come across a grown man bawling like a nutcase in the middle of the street you assume he needs therapy.’

‘Steve, you’re not a nutcase. And yeah, actually, I think that therapy helps a lot of people, and it could help you too, if you let it.’

Bucky closed his mouth after that outburst, aware that he was a little close to evangelizing for someone who was supposed to be supporting his friend. Friend? Yeah, Bucky decided right there, Steve was his friend.

It seemed to have worked, though. Steve gave Bucky a long, considered look before dropping his eyes and muttering, ‘… think about it…’

‘That’s all I can ask,’ Bucky smiled. 

They were interrupted just then by a waitress bearing a tray with their drinks and cinnamon rolls, so Bucky decided that they’d had enough heavy conversation for one day. He gestured to the warm cinnamon roll, dripping with sugar and butter, and urged Steve to dig in. Steve tore off a little bit of the roll, balled it up and eyed it suspiciously before popping it into his mouth, followed by a quick swallow of hot chocolate. It was one of the biggest most ridiculous drinks Bucky could order, topped with whipped cream, caramel sauce and packed with tiny floating marshmallows, perfect for a difficult morning. The moan that escaped Steve’s lips on tasting the cinnamon roll was practically indecent, and would have made Bucky blush if he hadn’t been so cold. 

‘Oh, Buck this is delicious! I can’t believe no one told me about these! I definitely should have had it on my list before now.’

‘Your list?’

‘Yeah, I –’ Steve paused, looking a little shy, ‘-I’ve got this list of things I missed, things I need to try. After today, I think that cinnamon rolls should have been number one with the bullet.’

‘I told you these were good. If you like them, wait until you try a cronut.’

‘What the hell is a cronut?’

‘Oh Stevie, Stevie, Stevie. My sweet summer child, I have so much to teach you. That was a Game of Thrones reference, by the way. That on your list?’

‘Yeah it’s on there. I haven’t got round to it though.’

‘Ok well you need to see it. It’s practically the law.’

‘Oh it’s the law, huh?’

‘Yup.’ 

Bucky almost made a joke about Captain America needing to uphold the law, but stopped himself at the last moment. He remembered the last time he’d brought up Cap and how it had made Steve immediately shut himself off. 

‘So, I think you should show me this list. If you don’t even have cinnamon rolls on there who knows what else you’re missing?’

After a hesitant moment, Steve drew a small black notebook from a pocket in his tracksuit pants. The spine was cracked and there was an old chocolate bar wrapper marking a page in lieu of a proper bookmark. A blunt stub of pencil poked out from between the pages. Steve opened it, frowned at the current page, and passed it over to Bucky.

It was… sad. A physical list, there in black and white, of all the reasons why Steve didn’t fit in. Game of Thrones was there, along with Star Wars/Trek, Thai food and Nirvana. Wow. That was a lot. Bucky saw the way that Steve was eyeing the notebook in his hands, the mixture of guilt and shame, and thought, no, this just wouldn’t do. 

‘See, here now – you’re lucky I came along, pal, because this list is not even halfway to being complete.’

Bucky had intended for that to be joking, but from the way that Steve hunched in on himself when he said that, Bucky guessed he’d missed his mark. 

‘What I mean is – you’re thinking about this wrong. It’s not a list of things you’ve missed out on, this is a list of the finest pop culture that the modern world has to offer. If you were going to make a list of all the things that are great about the modern world then yeah, I wholeheartedly support having Star Wars and Thai food on there. But Steve – you don’t even have Lego on here, or Ben and Jerry’s ice cream, or Stargate, not even Metallica, and that my friend is a tragedy that I just can’t allow.’

As Bucky talked, Steve seemed to perk up a little. By the time he got around to mentioning Ben and Jerry’s, there was a spark in Steve’s eye and when he finished, Steve looked straight at Bucky with the glint of mischief in his eye.

‘What do you suggest then, Oh Wise List-master?’ 

‘What I suggest, Stevie, is better friends. And a Star Wars movie marathon at my house with Ben and Jerry’s ice cream and pizza.’

‘Better friends, huh? Like you?’ Bucky could see that Steve was trying for nonchalance there, but the nervous cast of his eyes down onto the table top gave him away. 

‘Yeah, like me.’

The smile Steve gave Bucky after that could have banished thunderstorms. 

 

They sat in the coffee shop until Steve had polished off the cinnamon roll, ordered another one and then demolished two whole Reuben sandwiches with fragrant green tea (something else Steve should have had on his list, in Bucky’s opinion). For the first time since coming back from that awful mission, Steve felt hungry. Bucky was endlessly patient with him, explaining the differences between the different types of coffee and pastries, only a fraction of which Steve actually recognized from his time in France during the war. There hadn’t exactly been a lot of spare time for sitting around in coffee shops, but he thought he remembered the smell from somewhere. 

Before Steve knew it, hours had passed. He shook himself – he’d lapsed into silence, staring moodily into his coffee. Bucky seemed content to just let him be, not pushing him to talk or move or interact. Steve stretched and stood. His morning run had been interrupted when the raging emotions inside him had gotten too much to bear, and now he felt stiff and heavy. 

Bucky stood as well, face carefully neutral. Steve hoped to God that what Bucky had said about being friends had been true, that it hadn’t been an empty reassurance to a broken man, or worse, just a vain attempt to get friendly with Captain America. He didn’t think it was, but – he couldn’t quite be sure. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d been wrong about someone. 

‘Steve. This was good.’ Bucky’s gravelly voice rasped a little from the heat of the coffee shop, but it still managed to sound soft. Kind. 

‘Yeah, it was. Bucky –’ Steve didn’t know quite how to thank him for the enormity of what he’d done, ‘- thank you. Really. This was just what I need.’

Bucky blushed slightly and ducked his head, the gesture strangely adorable on such a large man. The next moment, Bucky was grinning up at Steve through the dark curtain of his hair.

‘Hey Stevie? Next time you wanna break down, don’t do it in the middle of my flowerbeds, ok? Next time you wanna break down, come to my apartment and do it there where you won’t hurt any vegetables.’

Steve huffed in mock-surprise, not sure if he was hearing this correctly. 

‘I’ll get dirt all over the place.’

Bucky frowned, picked up Steve’s notebook from where it rested on the table between them, and turned to an empty page.

‘Some of us actually have vacuum cleaners. I’m sure I can deal with that. Seriously though, let me give you my address… and here you may as well have my number too… just in case you need somewhere to go, or… whatever. No one will bug you there, I promise.’

Bucky scrawled down an address and phone number then snapped the notebook closed and gave it back to Steve, avoiding his eyes as he did so. Steve realised that he didn’t have an address book – everyone he knew lived with him in Avengers Tower. Did people even use address books these days? Maybe he would like an address book – write down all the names of people he knew and where to find them. Bucky’s name would be the first one, but he was hopeful that there would be more. 

‘Thank you,’ Steve managed to grit out. He wasn’t planning on it, but his left reached up of their own accord and awkwardly grasped Bucky’s right shoulder. Realising what he’d done, Steve moved to withdraw his hand, but Bucky just smiled and reached out to gently hold Steve’s left shoulder in his right hand. They stayed there for a moment like a mirror image of one another, and Steve thought, not for the first time, how startling it was to realise that the little crush he thought he’d got over had turned into something much more, because Bucky was the best person he knew, in this century or the last, and how hard his heart was jumping with the feeling of Bucky’s warm skin under his palm.

Eventually, Steve pulled away. He smoothed out his shirt, brushed his hair away from his forehead and smiled at Bucky. They walked out of the warm coffee shop and into the frigid November air together. Bucky shivered, although the cold could not touch the warmth in Steve’s heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes:
> 
> Chapter Warnings: Steve having a panic attack and being unresponsive to Bucky's attempts to help him at first.   
> Steve referring to himself as a 'nutcase' for having a breakdown in public. 
> 
> Chapter Summary:  
> Steve stops coming to the allotments after a bad mission and Bucky cannot find out if he is ok. When he re-appears, he is obviously Not OK and one morning Bucky comes across Steve as he is having a breakdown in the gardens. Bucky takes Steve to a coffee shop, they warm up and Steve gets to try cinnamon rolls for the first time. They talk, awkwardly at first, about Steve's mental health and therapy in general. Bucky and Steve declare that they are friends, and Bucky looks over Steve's list of things he needs to catch up on in the new century. they decide to work through some of the things on that list together as friends, and Bucky gives Steve his contact details in case he needs to contact him in future.


	5. Asleep under the earth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> STEVE ROGERS FLIRTS BY AGGRESSIVELY EATING THAI FOOD, PASS IT ON!

Chapter Five: Asleep under the earth---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
November 2013--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Steve texted Bucky within two hours of meeting him. He couldn’t help it – Bucky’s name was the first contact in his phone who didn’t have some sort of connection to SHIELD or the Avengers. It made him smile to pull out his phone, scroll down the contacts list and just stare at Bucky’s name for minutes on end. This was proof that Steve Rogers had a life outside of the Avengers; this was the first step in the rest of his life. He took to pulling out his phone at odd moments, leading the other Avengers to joke that he was ‘such a millennial.’ 

It turned out that Bucky hadn’t been kidding about a Star Wars movie marathon. The weekend after Steve’s discovery of the cinnamon rolls, he found himself staring at the inside of his closet in Avengers Tower three hours before he was supposed to be at Bucky’s, trying to decide what to wear. Back in his day, people had dressed nice to go to the movies, but did it still count as ‘going to the movies’ if it was just two friends hanging out in Bucky’s apartment watching movies on his TV? Was he still supposed to dress nice? It certainly was a conundrum. 

Steve did what he always did when he didn’t know what else to do – he pulled out his phone, opened his browser, and typed into Google the phrase ‘what to wear to a movie marathon.’

The results were mixed. In between adverts to so-called movie subscription services and click-bait articles about the dangers of binge-watching TV series was the odd reference to kids’ slumber parties, but that wasn’t really helpful. He doubted that Bucky would want him to turn up in pyjamas with a stuffed animal and a sleeping bag in tow. Hmm. Steve thought back – way back past the fog of time and grief that he usually tried to ignore… his mother had always taught him that guests bring gifts… Neither he nor Bucky drank alcohol, and he was a terrible cook, but… 

‘JARVIS? Where is the best place to buy a pie?’

‘I can have one delivered to the Tower, Captain Rogers,’ came the dry reply. 

Steve, as he always did, winced a little at the formal address. What the hell, he thought, if he was going to start being Steve Rogers again, this was going to be the first thing to go. 

‘JARVIS. In future can you please refer to me as Steve? I only want you to use my rank when I am on duty with the Avengers – otherwise, just plain Steve is fine.’

‘Your file has been updated, Steve,’ replied JARVIS, and a tiny, secret smile found its way onto Steve’s face. 

‘Thanks JARVIS, and I’d like to buy this myself so if you could download a map to my phone that would be great.’

‘As you wish, Steve.’

Steve absolutely *got* the buzz about modern phones. As far as Steve was concerned the best uses for modern technology were things which made life easier for people, like panic alarms and electric wheelchairs. Phones, with their ability to be a safety net, a call for help, an escape from reality or a means of keeping in touch, definitely fitted into that category. Steve may have had a lot of pop culture and history to catch up on, but he was almost as enthusiastic about the advances in technology, medicine and communications as Tony Stark was. For a man who’d fought in a war zone in a time when radar was only just being invented, and the armoured tank was still the height of military might, these advances and ways to make a soldiers life easier, hell any way to make life easier, was just fine with him. 

Steve grinned to himself as he stepped out of the Tower and followed JARVIS’ directions to the nearest family-owned bakery. Even though it was just a trip to a new bakery, this felt like a first step in the best kind of adventure. Who knew that being Steve Rogers could be fun? 

 

Steve turned up at Bucky’s third floor apartment later on that night with two fresh-baked cherry pies from a local bakery, a tub of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream and a jar of fudgy candies which Wanda called ‘Krówki’ and which were, in Steve’s opinion, the best thing about having Wanda in the Tower. Juggling the big box of food in one hand, Steve gave a decisive knock on the door of Bucky’s apartment. The knock sounded, admittedly, a lot more confident that he actually felt about this. Modern friendships between men were different than he was used to – and with how tongue-tied Steve knew he got around beautiful people anyway, there was nothing he could do or think to make his heart beat slower or his breath come easier. 

If he didn’t know better, Steve would say he was having an asthma attack – the tightness in his chest and pounding in his head were the same as he remembered for the few seconds that it took Bucky to get to the door and unlock it – but the smile on Bucky’s face when he opened the door and saw Steve standing there was enough to make him relax, but only a fraction. 

‘Stevie! Hey, I was just about to order something to eat. Oooh you brought food? Ok you can definitely come in.’

Steve chuckled at Bucky’s enthusiasm when handed the box of food, and followed him into the apartment. He took a seat while Bucky stored the food and ferreted around in a kitchen drawer for takeaway menus. Trying not to be too obvious or awkward, Steve gazed around the living room, taking in every detail. Inside it was a little pokey, two blue couches arranged around an old TV, the couches looking worn in and comfortable. They weren’t stylish or new or expensive looking, and Steve took great pleasure in sinking into a seat which would never be allowed within twenty feet of Avengers Tower. 

There was a large bookcase along one wall and a row of what looked to be family photos taking up space between the book spines. The photos showed Bucky in various ages and with groups of people who all shared his dark brown hair and golden skin, then with what Steve guess to be a group of school friends. Steve blinked at the photos of Bucky in military uniform, looking distant and capable with a rifle in his hands. 

‘My unit. The 107th.’ 

Steve jumped as Bucky’s voice came from right behind him – it had been a while since a civilian had been able to sneak up on him – but exhaled when he heard Bucky shift to the side. He reached out with his scarred left arm and touched the metal frame of the photo which showed a group of men and women in camo gear somewhere in the desert. Steve studied Bucky’s face as he looked at the photo. Bucky’s lips were curving in a gentle smile which made the tiny crows’ feet at the corners of his eyes a little more prominent. In his casual sweatpants, the maroon henley he’d been wearing when they met and with his hair pulled back into a messy bun, Bucky looked like the human embodiment of a soft hug, and looking at him all fond and wistful made Steve want to wrap his arms around Bucky and never let go. 

But then – no. 

Steve was well aware of the feelings that he carried; they informed his every decision and coloured each interaction between the two of them. Bucky was radiant and self-aware and kind and protective, and everything that Steve wished he could be in this new century. Bucky had been to hell and back during his career in the war, had sorted himself out and was actually living his life. As Bucky pulled away with another nice crinkly smile and went to phone for food, Steve experienced a pang of longing so sharp that he wasn’t sure that he hadn’t been stabbed with a stiletto blade. He wanted and he wanted and he wanted, but want wasn’t enough. 

Cap could never have these books, these photos. Cap could never spend enough time in his apartment for the couches to get that snuggly broken-in feel; Cap could never own pants that had been lovingly washed so many times they were almost threadbare but were still the softest pair he owned. Cap could never read his favourite book enough times to crack the spine in ten places like the books on Bucky’s shelf; Cap didn’t even have the time to have a favourite book. Was it possible to be nostalgic for something you’ve never had? Could he miss a time, a place, a feeling he’d never experienced? 

Steve pulled himself out of his headspace with a tiny shake of his head. Bucky had turned from the photo and was giving him a brilliant smile, and Steve felt his stomach grow warm as he smiled in return. Bucky was so beautiful, so alive, so human that Steve was suddenly struck with another wave of painful longing, this time for a genuine human connection with this amazing man standing right in front of him. 

‘So, I had thought to order pizza but I just remembered that you haven’t tried Thai food yet. What do you say we kill two birds with one stone, huh? Order Thai food while we watch Star Wars?’ 

Bucky was still smiling and RED ALERT Bucky was smiling THIS IS DEFCON FIVE because there were crinkles and dimples and warmth… but Steve’s insides were still jelly and he couldn’t do more than smile back and nod in what he hoped was a casual manner. 

 

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Watching Steve try Thai food for the first time was an experience that Bucky wished he’d caught on film. The food had been delivered halfway through A New Hope, and Bucky’s eyes watered just from inhaling the steamy goodness. He handed Steve a pair of chopsticks, pulled one out of the bag for himself, and divided up the food between them. This resulted in an impromptu lesson in how to use chopsticks, which apparently Steve had never done before but picked up quickly enough. 

Bucky watched with baited breath to see what Steve would make of the pad thai he’d ordered. Just as Steve raised his first successful mouthful of chopsticked noodles to his lips, he met Bucky’s eye and grinned cheekily. 

‘You waiting to see my reaction?’

‘I’ve heard that old people can’t deal with spicy food. Don’t hurt yourself pal.’

‘Bite me. ‘

Bucky laughed, out loud, a joyful sound he hadn’t quite been prepared to hear coming from himself. 

‘Shut up and eat your noodles.’ 

Watching Steve try Thai food for the first time was its own reward. Bucky thought he’d been considerate when ordering and had purposely avoided anything too spicy or unusual, but even so, the moment Steve swallowed his first mouthful of pad thai, his face lit up like Christmas, he coughed desperately and fanned his open mouth with such a look of surprise on his face that Bucky couldn’t help laughing. 

‘Something wrong, Stevie?’ asked Bucky innocently.

Steve shook his head but didn’t move even though he was starting to perspire. A determined glint in Steve’s eyes seemed to spell trouble for them both. Without breaking eye contact with Bucky, Steve shovelled another forkful of noodles into his mouth and chewed determinedly. Bucky watched in silence, wicked grin on his face, as Steve, the gigantic idiot, continued to eat the pad thai as though his head wasn’t on fire with the heat of the spices. 

Oh, Steve wanted to make this a competition? It was ON! 

Two-thirds of the way in, Steve stopped to wipe the sweat off his forehead, still without taking his eyes off Bucky and really, he was a little jealous of that super-soldier hand-eye co-ordination. Bucky raised a piece of chicken to his lips, knowing that it would be spicy but also knowing that when it came to spicy food, he could take anything that Steve could. Both men chewed their respective mouthfuls and yeah, ok, this one was spicy, but Bucky was not going to lose whatever unspoken weird competition he and Steve had going on. 

By the time they had both finished their noodles, Bucky was perspiring slightly, but Steve was running with sweat. There were sweat stains under his arms and drops of food across his chest and stomach from where he wasn’t quite adept at using chopsticks just yet, and Bucky had never seen Steve look happier. His face was flushed and sweaty and victorious and so, so gorgeous that Bucky had to clench his hands together to stop himself from reaching across and swiping a bit of sauce from Steve’s lips before pressing spicy little kisses to his swollen lips. 

Taking pity on the gigantic idiot sitting next to him, Bucky rushed into the kitchen and came back with a bottle of milk. Steve didn’t even pause; he swallowed down two huge gulps before pausing to drag in a long, painful breath. The puppy-eyes he was currently been subjected to nearly made Bucky melt, but Steve, the little troublemaker, merely said, 

‘You call that spicy? Didn’t feel a thing. Try harder next time, Barnes.’

Bucky laughed, ‘OK tough guy. How about we get you some clean clothes before you burst into flames and destroy my couch. Hey, you can take a shower if you want?’

Steve looked unsure for a moment before Bucky raised a pointed eyebrow at Steve’s huge pit stains. He flushed a little with embarrassment and nodded. 

Trying not to think about the fact that _Captain America was going to use his shower_ , Bucky showed Steve where everything was in the bathroom, fetched him a fresh towel and told him to take his time. He stood outside the locked bathroom door until he could hear the water running and the splashing of Steve showering, simultaneously thinking that he was being unacceptably creepy while also wishing that Steve could live here with him and use his shower whenever he wanted… wait, what? 

While Steve was showering, Bucky chucked his stained and damp t-shirt in the washing machine. He was about to pull out a clean sweater for Steve from his own drawers, but a flash of orange fleece in the corner of his wardrobe stopped him. A devious smile on his face, Bucky pulled two long items out and folded one outside the bathroom door. Bucky gave a small knock and let Steve know that he had left him something to wear, barely able to suppress his giggles as he did. 

Rushing as he heard Steve shut off the shower, Bucky changed his own outfit. He chuckled as he heard the bathroom door open and Steve’s low expression of confusion, then the door shutting again. Bucky peeked out – Steve had taken the outfit he’d been left. Good. 

When Steve came back into the living room, blushing uncontrollably and with a devastatingly beautiful shy smile on his face, Bucky couldn’t help but smile back wildly. Steve looked absolutely adorable in Bucky’s giraffe onesies, the legs an inch or so too short for him but with a pair of Bucky’s cosiest socks on his feet; the front zipped right up to his chin and with the cute little giraffe belly on show. Bucky had bought the onesie too big for himself on purpose because he liked to snuggle – but it fitted Steve like a dream. The bastard could actually pull off looking sexy in a giraffe onesie – how was that even fair? 

Steve’s eyes took in Bucky’s own brown teddy-bear onesie. For a moment, he looked unsure but then he burst out laughing.

‘I don’t remember these being on my list?’ Steve asked when he’d calmed down?

‘Maybe not, but you need to be introduced to this century’s greatest fashion statement; the onesie. It’s soft and warm and, let’s be honest, they look one hundred percent adorable on anyone and everyone.’

Oh shit did he say that out loud? Bucky hadn’t meant to admit to finding Steve adorable, and from the furious blush now on Steve’s face and neck, he definitely had said out loud. 

‘Yes, they do,’ replied Steve, softer this time and without a trace of laughter in his voice. Was that – no, Bucky was obviously reading waaaaaaaay too much into this because there was no way that Steve had just implied that he found Bucky adorable??

Somehow, being in ridiculous onesies with one another made everything less awkward as each man abandoned any attempt at looking good in favour of snuggling down into their fluffy clothing. By the time the two of them had watched The Empire Strikes Back, Bucky had brought out his secret weapon – the fluffy blankets. He wrapped one around his shoulders and watched with glee as Steve did the same. Something about seeing this beautiful, lonely man snuggling down into a heap of warm, fluffy blankets and layers of fleece made Bucky very happy indeed, and Steve looked like the worlds’ tallest duckling with his blond hair mussed up from laying on the couch and his body curled up into a tight ball as they watched together. 

Right around the time that Lando Calrissian was declaring that he had no choice but to sell the trio of heroes out to Vader, Bucky put the oven on to heat up. Between the movies, he started warming up the pie so that the whole apartment smelled of warmth and baking. He and Steve enjoyed some of the delicious pie Steve had bought, along with some Ben and Jerry’s Cookies n Cream while Steve shouted at the screen. Watching movies with Steve became Bucky’s absolute favourite thing in the world when Steve gasped and almost dropped his spoon when Luke Skywalker lost his arm in Return of the Jedi. Steve watched movies like a little kid – completely immersed in the on-screen world he was discovering for the first time. He didn’t laugh at the bad CGI or repeat all the bad dialogue in a silly voice like Bucky and his friends usually did. Steve loved the cheesy romance and actually clasped the blanket to his chest when Han and Leia declared their love for one another. It was perhaps the most endearing thing Bucky had ever seen. 

All too soon, the movies were over and Steve’s shirt was dry. Reluctantly, Steve changed back into his own clothes, before they both awkwardly stood around the living room. Bucky didn’t want Steve to leave and it looked like Steve’s awkward hovering meant that he didn’t want to leave either, but it was getting late and the winter weather outside was miserable, so Steve wanted to get home before the snow started in earnest. 

If this were any of his other friends, Bucky wouldn’t hesitate to give Steve a goodbye hug, but he remembered Steve’s reticence to be touched when they’d been at the allotments and the way he flinched when people got too close without him noticing, so he aborted the move to hug Steve goodbye. This resulted in a half-step forward and a stiff twitch of his upper body as he tried to turn the hug into something more casual. Steve, though, seemed to have no such reservations this time around. He pulled Bucky into a hug which made him simultaneously warm and cold; warm in all the places where Steve’s body touched his own, and all too aware of the cold in all the places where Steve wasn’t. It was such a nice, comfortable hug that Bucky let out a little sigh and rested his head on Steve’s shoulder before he could even stop himself. 

Suddenly horribly aware of how over-familiar and probably creepy he was probably being, Bucky pulled back and gave Steve a bro-tastic slap on the shoulder. The look on Steve’s face was startled and shy but somehow… disappointed? No, that couldn’t be right. He had to have imagined that look. Bucky gave his best impersonation of a no-homo grin as he waved Steve out of the door, scolding himself for forgetting that Steve was from a time when men didn’t hug like that and that he had probably just made his new friend very uncomfortable by doing so. Sighing loudly to himself, Bucky closed the door and leaned back against it. Why did he have to fall for someone as unattainable as Steve Rogers?

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  

Steve turned up the collar of his winter coat against the November cold as he walked briskly back to the nearest subway station, his thoughts a churning mess of indecision. The largest part of him wanted to run back into Bucky’s arms, kiss him senseless and declare that he never wanted to leave. The practical part of him, though, knew that this was a stupid idea and that Bucky probably didn’t even like men, let alone a mess like him. Bucky had seen Steve at his lowest, and he was still sticking around, which counted for something, but Steve was really being greedy by wanting more than friendship with the other man, right? His heart aching and his brain running over the best afternoon he’d had in a long, long time, Steve lamented that he had fallen for someone as far out of his league as Bucky Barnes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These boyssssss!!!!!!  
> Steve 100% flirts by bugging the shit out of people, bless his little heart. That's my headcannon and I'm sticking to it.


	6. Seedlings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The last time they had gotten together and tried sticky baklava coated in nuts and honey courtesy of Mrs Yiannopolis, Bucky had challenged Steve to the hardest thing he’d had to do since coming out of the ice: bake a cake himself. Steve, military genius though he might be, was never good at following instructions and baking was no exception. His first two efforts came out pancake-thin and burnt black, and both ended with him staring regretfully at the contents of his trash. He decided to call in the big guns.

Chapter Six: Seedlings----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
January – February 2014---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In the two months since that first movie night, Steve and Bucky had worked through the majority of the things on his list. Every time he thought they were getting close to finishing, he’d find something else that he needed to experience, and needed to experience with Bucky because that was what they did together these days. Steve was worried beyond belief that if he finished the list that meant that his and Bucky’s friendship would also be finished, because then Bucky would have no reason to spend time with Steve outside of their meetings at the allotments. 

The last time they had gotten together and tried sticky baklava coated in nuts and honey courtesy of Mrs Yiannopolis, Bucky had challenged Steve to the hardest thing he’d had to do since coming out of the ice: bake a cake himself. Steve, military genius though he might be, was never good at following instructions and baking was no exception. His first two efforts came out pancake-thin and burnt black, and both ended with him staring regretfully at the contents of his trash. He decided to call in the big guns. 

Wanda agreed to teach Steve how to bake a cake after much eye-rolling and teasing. The one she chose was piernik – a Polish gingerbread and honey cake that her grandmother used to make for her and Pietro when they were little. Wanda’s tiny smile and the care she put into the baking made Steve think that this was more than just a cake for her, just as growing things was more than just ‘gardening’ to Steve. 

‘It’s a good way to remember them,’ she said when Steve gently asked her. 

Wanda and Steve both knew what it was like to lose everyone you cared about, but this, sharing a treasured family recipe with a new friend, this could go a little of the way to filling the gaping hole that loneliness excavated in both of their hearts. 

The piernik turned out great. The smell of ginger and honey made Steve’s stomach rumble when he took it from the oven. When the cake was cool, Wanda instructed him to spread a thick layer of plum jam in between each tier of the cake, standing over his shoulder and making teasing comments about Captain America’s knife skills as he did so. Finally, Steve stacked the layers of honey cake on top of one another and coated it with something fancy-looking called a ganache, which Wanda said was how her grandmother used to do it, knowing that small children like as much sweetness as they can stuff into their little mouths. The ganache required patience and delicacy, two things which Steve did not possess in abundance, but he got it on his second attempt. 

 

Two hours later Steve was just leaving the Tower with his first attempt at piernik in his hands, heart bursting with pride and anticipation for Bucky to try his cake, when his phone went off in his back pocket. He recognised the tone immediately – the call for the Avengers to assemble at once. 

‘Shit, no, no not now, not today!’ 

Steve juggled the cake and his phone as he acknowledged the alert and silenced it. He allowed himself one moment of despair before he turned, strode back through the lobby of the Tower and took the emergency elevator straight up to his floor. Slipping into the headspace needed to be Cap was always easy; he was as much Cap as he was Steve, because all Cap’s values and achievements were also his. Being Captain America was more than just a job for Steve – even when he wasn’t wearing the suit he was still the same person inside, just a little less vigilant. Cap was Steve was Cap, and he was foolish to think that the world would let him have a life outside his job, even if, just for today, he’d allowed himself to fantasise about hanging out with a friend, eating cake and watching old movies and sitting a little too close together than friends generally would. 

Steve stowed the cake in his fridge and sighed to himself at the thought of the evening with Bucky that he had planned and how it was all going to waste now anyway. Oh well, he thought, maybe this is a sign that Cap can’t be friends with civilians. It’s just going to lead to too much disappointment in the end. Reluctantly, Steve pulled out his phone and texted Bucky. He kept it short and clipped, as emotionless as possible. 

**Steve: Sorry but I can’t make it tonight. Got called into work. Raincheck?**

The reply came through a few minutes later and even the slight hint of emotion in the message was enough to make Steve have to set the phone down carefully and step away while he took deep breaths. 

**Bucky: Aww no! Take care of yourself then Stevie, and we can do this some other time**

Just that hint of worry, that “take care of yourself” and the use of the nickname – that was almost enough to bring Steve to tears all over again. He was reluctant to leave the conversation hanging, but he didn’t think he had the mental strength to keep talking to Bucky and not break down. Instead of allowing his emotions to overwhelm him, Steve did what he always did – he squared his shoulders, pushed his emotions to the back of his mind, and did what needed to be done.   
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The dusty TV screen was too impermeable a barrier for Bucky to reach through and give Steve a hug when he saw the news footage of the Avengers fighting yet another alien attack, but that didn’t stop him pressing his hands right up to Steve’s on-screen face. Captain America had his helmet off and was running a hand through his dirty hair as Iron Man talked to the press after the attack was over. Bucky stroked Steve’s grainy on-screen shoulder, and wished more than anything that he could talk to Steve, and waited and waited and waited for Steve to text him back, but he never did. 

 

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It wasn’t until he got back from the disastrous alien invasion mission three days later, took a shower and slept for fourteen hours that Steve thought to charge his phone, so it was only then that he saw the message that had been sent a few hours after he’d left. 

**Bucky: Come back safe Stevie, and remember that I’m here for you**

When he saw that message, sitting up in bed in the quiet apartment that didn’t quite feel like home, Steve finally allowed himself to break down. 

He didn’t deserve Bucky’s friendship, he was already a mess and he didn’t want to foist that on anyone else, he was always going to be a disappointment and Bucky might even end up in danger just by being his friend. He’d seen so many people die in the latest alien attack, and knew that nightmares of being unable to stop their deaths happening right in front of his eyes would haunt his for weeks. It would be better for everyone if he cut off the connection right now before he got in too deep and had to see Bucky get hurt because of him. 

Steve turned his phone off without replying, sank down under his covers, and tried to stop shivering. 

He never did text Bucky back. 

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Steve didn’t text him back, nor did he show up at the allotments for the next week. Bucky went through a suite of emotions from frustration to anger to worry to genuine crawling fear; it took ten days after Steve was meant to have returned from the mission for Bucky to get the courage to talk to Bruce and Wanda about Steve’s absences. 

He approached Bruce first of all as the older man seemed a little less scary than Wanda. He was sitting on the vine-covered seat in his allotment, glasses perched on the top of his head as he scribbled in a battered notebook. Nervously, because after all it was not wise to sneak up on the Hulk, Bucky approached, making sure that he walked loudly. 

Bruce looked up and smiled, ‘Bucky! How are you? Nothing wrong, I hope?’

‘Hey Bruce, yeah I’m fine, it’s just…. I wanted to ask you about…. about…’ Goddamnit why was this so difficult? 

Bruce’s expression darkened. ‘About the Other Guy?’ he asked, his voice deceptively mild.

‘Nonononono! No. Not about the – the Other Guy. It’s about – Steve. Have you heard from him? He hasn’t contacted me in over a week and I know he had a mission before that and I just…’ Bucky trailed off miserably, not looking Bruce in the eye. All his confidence had drained while he spoke, because what if Steve was fine but just didn’t want to hang out with Bucky anymore? What if he was still away on a mission and Bucky was getting himself into a mess over nothing?

‘I haven’t heard from him either. He’s – Steve is back in New York, but he’s been in his room so I haven’t seen him around. You really care about him, don’t you?’

Bucky deliberated a moment, but looking up into Bruce’s kind eyes made him trust the older man immediately. 

‘I do. He’s… well, he’s a friend. And I know he has you guys to look out for him, but…’

‘But you’re allowed to care about him, too. Maybe Wanda has seen him? The two of them are pretty close.’

‘OK I’ll ask her,’ Bucky replied miserably. 

‘Hey, Bucky? I’m sure that Steve is fine. He would be happy to know that there are people outside of the Avengers who care about him.’

‘Then why is he ignoring me?’ Bucky almost whispered.

‘I wish I could answer that, I really do. Steve is – well, he’s a lot more complicated than the Captain America propaganda would have you believe. He might need some time to himself, just – make sure you respect that.’

Bucky nodded, ‘Yessir. I just want to know he’s OK.’

Bruce smiled and nodded, then went back to whatever he was writing in his little book. Bucky turned and went in search of Wanda, finding her caressing a blooming heartsease plant in her lap. Bucky was used to plants flowering out of season by now, when Wanda was around it seemed like any nearby plants just had to put out buds. Bucky had seen stray animals drawing closer to her as well, seeking out comfort, and his heart went out to them all. 

‘Uh, Wanda?’

‘Bucky! It is good to see you again, what troubles you?’

Bucky didn’t even wonder how she could tell he was troubled – it was all part of her mysterious power. 

‘Bruce mentioned that you might know how Steve is doing. I haven’t heard from him in a while.’

‘Did you see him last week?’

‘No – we were going to meet up but he got called away to a mission with the Avengers.’

Wanda turned her head away. ‘Yes. It worked out in the end, but a lot of people… didn’t make it.’

Bucky went still with horror. ‘Is Steve alright? It he hurt?’

‘He is fine, at least in his body… Steve has comforted me many times when I have been down after a mission; he knows how it affects me. It is time I returned the favour – I will go to him.’

Bucky sighed in relief. ‘Thank you. Please, let me know how he is?’

The purple-blossomed heartsease was set gently down on the ground and worked into a shallow hole with tender fingers before Wanda stood, brushing dirt off her dress. The look she gave Bucky was appraising, fond, and a little protective. Wanda’s kind eyes seemed to be smiling even though she had her lips pursed. She lifted a hand to cup Bucky’s jaw, the coldness of her many silver rings bringing his mind into focus.

‘Your concern for your friend does you justice, Bucky Barnes. Steve is lucky to have you as a friend.’

Without another word, she walked off and out of the allotment, leaving Bucky looking after her with a confused expression on his face. 

His confusion turned to frustration as Bucky dug into his own little allotment and raked mulch over the soil. So, Steve was back in New York but hadn’t texted Bucky? Admittedly, they hadn’t been super close, but Bucky had started to think that Steve and he were pretty good friends. 

But – and here, doubt crept in – why would Captain America, why would Steve Rogers for that matter, want to be friends with him? He spent all his time up to his elbows in mud, his standard of living was lower than ever thanks to his dwindling army pension, and he was covered in scars, both physical and mental, from his life time in combat. Steve, on the other hand, was a goddamn Avenger who rubbed shoulders with billionaires like Tony Stark and probably had almost as much money. He had the best apartment, best doctors, best resources that money could buy – against such overwhelmingly stacked odds, what could the friendship of a man like Bucky Barnes offer him? 

Bucky only realised that he had got carried away with his anger when he saw that he’d raked over the same spot with so much vigour that he was creating a small hole. Bucky sighed and kicked the earth with his right boot. He suddenly didn’t feel like gardening any more. Worry for Steve as well as frustration at his lack of communication was getting the better of Bucky’s sometimes unpredictable mood, and all he wanted was a hot bath, a blanket and his bed. Looking around, he decided that he would go home early today. The petty squabbles and little annoyances of life as a community volunteer would have to wait for another day. Bucky needed to take care of himself first. 

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Four days after Bucky and Wanda talked, Steve woke up from a mid-morning nap to a loud knocking at his door and shouted threats of violence and “dishonour on his cow,” whatever that meant. He supposed it was just one more thing about the modern world which had passed him by. It turned out that the threats were not idle, though, as a moment later Steve heard a loud crack which sounded suspiciously like the door to his apartment being kicked in, and two sets of footsteps crossed his kitchen floor. Steve’s brain coldly identified the footsteps as belonging to Natasha and Wanda, and he huddled down under his now-smelly blankets even further. God, when was the last time he’d showered? 

‘Steve! I know you’re in there, open the door or I’ll kick it down.’ Yup, that was Natasha. There was a scuffling sound which could have been Wanda jostling the angry redhead out of the way, and then a tendril of warm red power flowed through the keyhole. It did not unlock the door, but rather hovered in mid-air glowing slightly, and when Wanda spoke next it was like she was in the room with Steve. 

‘Steve? It’s Wanda. Nat will not kick the door down, I promise you, but we are worried about you. Will you come out and talk to us? Please?’

Steve stayed silent. Perhaps if he hid under the covers, they wouldn’t know he was there? 

The red tendril passed straight through Steve’s layers of blankets and Wanda’s voice, now whispered, continued to plead with him to leave his bedroom and come out to them. 

Steve just turned away. His brain felt numb and fogged with exhaustion, and he didn’t understand why the others wouldn’t leave him in peace. Eventually, the red tendril retreated and Steve drifted off to sleep again in the stinking comfort of his bed. He woke hours later tangled in his bed-sheets with the smell of coffee drifting in from the kitchen. 

That was the last straw for Steve. Anger invaded his brain and galvanized his limbs to action. Invading his privacy, refusing to leave him alone and now drinking his coffee? Wanda and Nat were in for a fight. Steve threw his covers off, lunged out of bed without even thinking about hiding away, and pulled on the first set of clothes he could find on his floordrobe, a comfy t-shirt and gym shorts. 

He stormed into the kitchen ready to give the girls a piece of his mind but as soon as he opened his mouth he saw that they weren’t alone. Bucky, and a handsome black man with kind eyes, were sitting at his kitchen table sharing his coffee with Wanda and Nat. 

As soon as Bucky saw him, he pushed his chair back, marched around the island table and stood right in front of Steve. Without saying anything, he opened his arms, and Steve was the one to close the final inches between them and sink into a gentle, safe hug. If it weren’t for the man he didn’t know, Steve would have burst into tears right there. 

‘I went to Wanda when you didn’t reply to me,’ mumbled Bucky into his ear as they embraced. 

‘Traitor,’ Steve replied, trying to lighten the sombre mood. 

‘No Stevie, I just care about you,’ came the kind reply. 

Finally they had to pull apart, and despite their closeness moments before, Steve couldn’t bring himself to look into Bucky’s eyes. Could he just keep hugging Bucky forever so that he never had to face him? 

Instead of confront Bucky’s gaze, Steve turned to the table. He held out his hand to the man he didn’t know. 

‘Steve Rogers.’

‘Sam Wilson,’ replied the other man with a gap-toothed smile. 

‘Not to be rude, but – why are you in my apartment?’

‘Bucky asked him,’ explained Nat, ‘Sam here is a counsellor down at the VA, and Bucky thought that you might find it helpful to talk to him.’

‘A therapist?’ Steve asked, betrayed.

‘Hey, if it helps, just think of me as a friend,’ replied Sam. 

‘Sam was the one to help me when I came back from Afghanistan,’ Bucky said. 

Bucky made a movement like he intended to clasp Steve’s shoulder, but Steve ducked under Bucky’s outstretched arm, burrowed into Bucky’s warmth and let himself be held. Bucky froze. Steve, desperately trying not to catch Bucky’s eye, started to pull away. Before he could, however, Bucky wrapped his arm tighter around Steve and tucked his body into Bucky’s side. The fingers of Bucky’s left hand gently caressed Steve’s forearm, and somehow the simple gesture grounded him and made everything a little brighter. 

Steve finally looked up at Bucky, and seeing nothing but kind-hearted support in his gorgeous grey-blue eyes, found the courage to speak up. 

‘I’ll do it. I’ll try talking. It won’t be easy for me, but… yeah. I’ll try.’

‘I think you might be surprised at how easy it is, after you’ve been doing it for a little while,’ murmured Sam. 

Bucky beamed down at Steve, who was still tucked under his arm, and Steve smiled tentatively back.


	7. First buds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was… a bouquet of flowers? No, that wasn’t quite right. It was a bundle of… plant-based things… wrapped up in some of the edging twine that they used to mark out the allotments and made to look like it was a decorative bunch of flowers by someone who obviously had an eye for art as well as a mind for practical jokes. This did not look like the kind of thing that Sam would ever do. What the hell? This was the weirdest bunch of flowers he’d ever received… just because it was also the first bunch he’d ever received didn’t mean that he was going to accept it. If this was a message, it was the most cryptic one he’d ever received, and whoever thought of it would have a bright future in military code-cracking waiting for them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A shorter chapter this time in anticipation of the final chapter, which will be significantly longer than this one...

Chapter Seven: First buds------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
Four months later: April 2014--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was, Bucky thought to himself, very lucky for Steve that he was both a national icon and Bucky’s best friend, because if he wasn’t, Bucky would probably have killed him by now. Why did he ever think that giving Steve his own allotment was a good idea? Oh yeah, that’s right. After Steve had hit rock bottom a few months ago and needed all the help he could get to pull himself out of the deep, dark hole that was depression and PTSD, Sam Wilson had suggested that going back to growing things and taking time for himself would be beneficial, and Bucky – well, Bucky would give Steve the heart from his chest if it would make Steve feel better. Even though Steve continued to be a stubborn little hellion sometimes, Steve’s new-found self-awareness and the tiny, happy smile that graced his gorgeous face whenever his plants bloomed or fruited was justification enough. Steve had forbidden Wanda from helping his plants grow, insisting that he would do it himself or not at all. It was such a Steve thing to do that Bucky couldn’t help but smile as he saw Steve out in the allotments every day, tongue sticking out between his pink lips as he worked the soil, the most luminous expression on his face as he examined each new shoot which broke the surface. Yes, Steve still had bad days as Bucky himself did and as did everyone who’d ever had depression, but he was getting better, slowly. 

 

Still, though. As Steve became himself a little more each week, all the reckless idiocy and stubborn pig-headedness which characterised Bucky’s best friend was coming back to him. 

Last week, Steve had been papped digging away in his plot, and now it seemed like the entire population of celebrity news reporters on the east coast had descended on them. Technically, it was a public place so Bucky couldn’t kick them out, but he could stand there and glower at anyone who got too close to Steve, or the school kids, or the veterans, or any of the other regulars who Bucky had taken a liking to. This was meant to be a calm space, dammit! 

After the first time that his crocus bulbs were trampled by the feet of photographers looking for a candid shot of him, Steve started spreading thick manure over as much of his own allotment as he could. Bucky again regretted giving him his own plot every time he had to yell at Steve because it stank so badly. The next week, a big colour photo of Steve weeding the herb patch showed up online, and Steve’s plant choices got even worse.

‘Steve! What the fuck is that smell?’ 

‘What smell?’ 

‘That god-awful stink coming from your allotment!’

‘I dunno Buck, maybe you should go and take a look.’

‘Gah! Skunk-weed, really Stevie? This reeks!’

‘Does it? I hadn’t noticed.’

‘Steve.’

‘What?’

‘This is where those reporters were hiding last week, isn’t it? That’s what this sudden obsession with smelly plants is about.’

‘What in the world would give you that idea?’

 

One Week Later-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bucky sighed as he recognised the small dark-green leaves and little red drupes in the middle of a freshly-turned patch in Steve’s allotment. 

‘Steve! Is this Bustin’-hearts?’

Steve blushed furiously, fingers nervously playing with the hem of his shirt. 

‘Yeah it is. Do you like it?’

‘Stevie, this is poisonous! It’s gonna give everyone the shits and I know you don’t want that. Get rid of it, hell – burn it!’

Steve slumped, the look on his face guilt-stricken and devastated. Bucky’s heart almost went out to the big mook but really, he thought, this is a community space, people bring their kids and pets here. Steve should know better than to plant something like that, although after the stink-weed incident he was beginning to think that the little shit was doing this on purpose. 

He watched Steve tug up the little green shoots and walk them over to the bonfire pile. He made a mental note to set a fire today, before anything poisonous could seed in the compost heap. 

 

Three Weeks Later-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The worst one though, was nothing to do with reporters at all. Three weeks into April, Bucky caught sight of something in Steve’s allotment that made his blood boil.

‘Steven Rogers get your butt over here this instant and tell me that this isn’t what I think it is!’ Bucky yelled.

Steve obligingly trotted over, face paling when he saw what Bucky was pointing to. 

‘Uh, I can explain –’

‘What. The hell? I don’t want an explanation! I want it gone.’

‘It’s medicinal?’

‘I don’t give a shit! If the cops catch Captain America growing weed in a community-funded garden they will absolutely close us down, they will lock you up and they will throw the goddamn book at you!’

‘I would never let that happen! It’s on my plot, it’s my responsibility. You can deny-’

‘Steve, GET IT OUT. If you wanna grow weed that’s your own business but don’t do it in plain daylight in the middle of my goddamn community garden!’

‘But-’

‘Don’t argue with me! You put everyone here in danger of arrest just so you could grow your damn medicinal weed!’

‘It’s for the veterans! I’m helping people.’

‘Steve. I won’t ask you again. Get it out of here.’

‘…sorry, Buck.’

Honestly? As much as Bucky adored and admired Steve, he could take that Chaotic Good bullshit somewhere else every once in a while so that Bucky didn’t have to be so worried about him getting hurt or arrested or being the subject of a nasty online article by a disgruntled reporter with manure all over their shoes. Worrying about Steve was becoming a full time job. 

The annoyance and worry were worth it though, because three nights later Bucky tuned into the news in time to see an Avengers press conference. A reporter from the Daily Planet asked Steve whether he thought that gardening was an appropriate use of time for a public servant like Captain America who was supposed to be keeping America safe from aliens and killer robots. Bucky almost screamed at his TV screen at the obnoxious question, and he could see the little on-screen Steve hold up a hand to silence both Bruce and Tony who had jumped in to defend him. Steve leaned forwards into his mic, and very clearly stated, 

‘I have a right to a private life just as much as any other American citizen. I cannot be Captain America all the time, and when I am not on duty, I’m just plain old Steve Rogers, and I enjoy growing vegetables. Anyone who wishes to complain about the misuse of military funding should probably take it up with the generals who spend millions of dollars bombing innocent towns in the Middle East, rather than sniping at-’

Anything that Steve said after that was unheard as Pepper Potts lunged forward and wrenched Steve’s microphone away from him. In the chaos that followed, Bucky managed to see Steve being led away by Nat and Bruce, still arguing and shouting at the reporters. The press conference ended in a mess of yelling and camera flashes, and the TV feed hastily cut back to the news studio.

Bucky clutched his fists to his mouth in delight and fist-pumped enthusiastically in the middle of his living room.

‘Go Stevie!!!!!’ he yelled. 

Digging out his phone, Bucky sent a delighted text to Steve telling him that he’d seen the press conference and that he was so proud of him and that he was awesome. All he received back was a smiley-face emoji – Steve LOVED emojis – but it was enough. The smile on Bucky’s face stayed there for the rest of the evening, and he watched the clip of the press conference on Youtube over and over again, cackling delightedly to himself every time he did so. Those months of therapy, heart-ache and slowly bringing Steve Rogers back into the world were worth every painful second to see Steve standing up for himself and declaring on national TV that he was more than just Captain America. 

 

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Bucky turned up at the allotments in the middle of one of the biggest rainstorms that New York had seen that year. When he ducked into the battered tea shed, Sam Wilson was waiting for him. Bucky greeted Sam with the warmth of an old friend, and really, with how Sam had helped both Bucky and Steve regain themselves after coming back from wars spanning the twentieth century, how could he not consider Sam a friend? Bucky barely had time to crack a smile before Sam thrust a collection of branches into his arms, muttered something about being the best wingman ever, and stomped out of the shed into the rain without even waiting to put up his umbrella. Confused, Bucky tried to shout after him but Sam didn’t seem to hear his calls as he disappeared into the gardens. 

Bucky looked down at the odd collection of branches in his arms.

It was… a bouquet of flowers? No, that wasn’t quite right. It was a bundle of… plant-based things… wrapped up in some of the edging twine that they used to mark out the allotments and made to look like it was a decorative bunch of flowers by someone who obviously had an eye for art as well as a mind for practical jokes. This did not look like the kind of thing that Sam would ever do. 

Poking carefully at the string until the bow came undone, Bucky spread the bouquet out on the table and took a proper look at it. The only thing he could immediately identify was a thorny black branch with orange berries which Bucky knew was buckthorn. He knew this because it was poisonous and he’d had to veto Steve’s suggestion to plant a thick buckthorn hedge in between his allotment and the road just the other day. Putting the buckthorn to one side, Bucky picked up the next fragile piece. 

A collection of withered fruit on a dried stem… This one was harder to identify. Some kind of large brown raisin, maybe? A tiny dried apple? The fruit was squidgy and dense, wrinkled slightly but retaining enough moisture to waft a honey-sweet fragrance to Bucky’s nose as he turned it over in his hands. He knew that smell, how did he know that smell? An image of military fatigues and desert skylines sprang to mind, but he still couldn’t quite identify what the fruit he was holding actually was. Sighing, he put it down and lifted up the last item in the bundle.

It was a packet of artificial sweetener. What the hell? This was the weirdest bunch of flowers he’d ever received… just because it was also the first bunch he’d ever received didn’t mean that he was going to accept it. What even were those dried fruits, anyway? If this was a message, it was the most cryptic one he’d ever received, and whoever thought of it would have a bright future in military code-cracking waiting for them. 

The strange bunch of flowers, and their possibly cryptic hidden meaning, stayed with Bucky all through the rest of the day and into the evening. He mulled them over while browsing the aisles at the supermarket on his way home, scanning the produce section for anything that resembled those large shrivelled grape-things and turning over the packet of artificial sweetener in his pocket. What the hell did it all mean? 

As he turned the end of the aisle, Bucky’s nose caught a familiar honey-sweet smell in the air. Turning back to the fruit stands, he followed the scent to a display of oblong packets of fruit. Reaching over to examine it, Bucky gasped as he saw that the package, which definitely contained the same fruits as were found in his bouquet earlier, advertised them as ‘Grade A Medjool Dates.’ Bucky sprang back as though the packet had bitten him. Dates? The wrinkled fruit were dates? Bucky ripped the packet of sweetener out of his pocket, smoothing out the grubby writing and peering closely at the label.  
It was Sweetleaf. It was… stevia. 

Hang on…. Buckthorn. Dates. Stevia. If this was some kind of joke, Bucky thought he might pass out from anger right there in the produce aisle because what this seemed to be saying… if he really thought about it in the right way… that this… that they… 

 

Bucky was pretty sure he was right about this, but he needed to be absolutely certain about who gave Sam the bouquet before he did something monumentally stupid and embarrassing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ten House Points to everyone who guesses who made that bouquet and what the cryptic message means...

**Author's Note:**

> Updates every few weeks, with any luck. Should be about 20k words when done. For those of you waiting for updates on my other fics, they will be forthcoming. My priorities are this one, Our Get-Along Shirt and The Assistant before I start to expand either the Peaches or Thunderstorms universes.


End file.
